Margo, no! - Margo, yes!
by Sapphire's Ink
Summary: A human who can control scraplets? How odd. Don't worry, though. Aside from the aggressive cursing and unusual protectiveness, she really isn't all that adversarial.
1. Pancakes, motherfuckers!

Margo Dupain-Sunet was very calmly listening to her music and walking home when her life got flipped upside down. Miko Nakadai, her best friend and fellow transfer student (though from Japan and not France), walked alongside her as they got to their respective host parents' house. Miko's house was in the completely opposite direction, but the girl was walking Margo home. For the past few days, ever since Margo'd gotten stuck in an alley with purple cars shooting red blasts and the motorcycle shot away, she'd been increasingly worried about a stalker with a blue motorcycle. Everywhere she turned, there were either the purple cars, or the blue motorcycle. And both were extremely creepy.

"Hey, Gogo?"

The brown-haired girl tucked a head phone behind her ear. "Yeah?"

"Isn't that the same bike from earlier?"

Margo looked up from her book. It was indeed the same blue bike with pink highlights. "How does it always manage to find us?" In order to avoid it, they'd already taken six obscure shortcuts and doubled around at least twice. It was the only reason why their journey was taking so long.

They walked along the side of the road for a while until they noticed four identical purple and black cars. They immediately turned they spotlights on Margo and Miko and started getting closer.

Miko dragged Margo into an abandoned street corner, where the buildings were close enough together that the cars wouldn't fit.

"So, suspicions?" Margo asked immediately.

"Biker's someone with a major grudge. The purple cars might be government trying to protect us," Miko said.

Margo shrugged. "I guess we'll have to wait. Still got your pocketknife?"

"Always."

Margo smiled. It was the smile that said she was either going to slap you with a fish or she was proud. She got her own pocketknife out of her jeans, subtly shoved it up her sleeve with the blade out, and started walking with Miko.

The next day at school, the blue bike was there again. Miko shrugged and started sketching it again, this time coloring in the rainbows and hearts.

"Gotta say, no matter who my stalker is, they can go fuck themselves. I can't believe they have better rides than us!" Margo griped.

Miko's phone rang, and Margo looked over the Asian's shoulder. Arcee took her chance, activated her Sadie hologram, and started moving after her assigned pickup.

When Miko and Margo finally noticed the bike was gone, Margo flipped over the back of the rail, Miko hot on her tail. If they had a stalker, they were going to figure out who the fuck it was so they could fuck them up.

"You may be in danger, because you are one of the few, one of the ONLY who have ever seen us."

"Well, with such lousy cover-keeping, it's a wonder you don't get discovered more often," Margo snarked.

"Dude, what are you waiting for? GO WITH!"

Arcee blinked, and her hand drooped. "Scrap. There's another."

Margo and Miko ended up going with Jack on the motorcycle.

"And WHY are we bringing them?"

"Rules!" Arcee answered as they sped down the road. It really wasn't safe to be having three people on one motorcycle, but Miko was kind of sitting on the handlebars since no one could see them, and she was wearing the only helmet there.

They all, of course, got off as soon as they arrived inside the shielded silo, where Arcee picked up Jack in one hand and Margo and Miko in the other.

"I thought there were three," said a gruff voice once Arcee stopped inside and put them down on the floor.

"Haven't you heard? Humans multiply," Arcee said flippantly.

"You sound like Weyoun," Margo said bluntly. "Hi, Weyoun 8."

"I'm Jack," Jack breezed past that.

"Raf," said the youngest with orange hair and glasses.

"I'm Miko!" Miko said, running up to the largest, a green bot. "Who're you?"

"I wonder if there are other Weyouns?" Margo said aloud as she started walking around, ignoring Miko's ranting at Bulkhead. There was a red, blue, and silver bot coming around the corner who was obviously tallest. She blinked at the new addition. "Well, you're for sure not a Weyoun. I think I'll call you... Deyos. He was fun, and he led Ikat'ika, the sort-of-noble Jem'Hadar."

His footsteps shook the ground. It was a wonder the others hadn't noticed him.

"So, if you guys are robots, who made you?" Raf asked.

Weyoun 8 scoffed. "Puh-lease."

The others finally noticed Deyos-but-less-brutal (since they hadn't been squished underfoot yet). "We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet called Cybertron, also known as Autobots."

Margo blinked. "Funny. I could've sworn you were Vorta."

Miko slapped a hand over Margo's mouth. "Hush, you, with your DS9 references."

Margo licked Miko's hand until the girl recoiled. "Then how to you explain Weyoun 8's voice!"

**"Who is Weyoun 8?"** asked the yellow bot.

"The one who sounds like Weyoun, obviously," Margo rolled her eyes.

Arcee blinked. "Well, that's new."

"What's new?" Raf asked. "Meeting another Star Trek fan that's not online or in my family? I agree."

Margo's eyes widened. Her head darted to meet Raf's eyes. "You understand my references?"

"Yes," Raf said.

Margo laughed. "HE GETS MY REFERENCES!"

"Yes!" Raf agreed. "And I agree, the white-and-orange bot sounds EXACTLY like Weyoun."

"Except less... deferential," Margo said.

"And older. More gravelly," Raf nodded.

"Ratchet, don't you dare squish the fleshlings," Arcee warned between giggles. "I'm having way too much fun with this."

Jack cleared his throat warningly. "Why are you here?" he addressed Deyos-but-less-brutal.

"To protect your planet from the decepticons," Optimus said.

"The jokers who tried to run us off last night," Arcee elaborated.

Miko laced her fingers under her chin. "Okay. Now, why are _they_ here?"

Optimus knelt. "A fair question, Miko. In part, because our planet has been rendered uninhabitable, ravaged by centuries of civil war."

"Why were you fighting a war?" Raf asked.

"I'm guessing it's none of our business," Margo picked under her nails.

"I believe you have a right to know, as you have been inadvertently dragged into our conflict," Optimus said. "Foremost, the war was fought for two reasons. The first was the method of deconstructing an unjust political system. The second was control over our world's supply of Energon, the fuel and lifeblood of all Autoboots and Decepticons alike."

"Right," Margo said. "Well, thanks for the intergalactic history lesson. Are we going to be staying here?"

"Not indefinitely," Optimus said. "However, as the Decepticons believe you're affiliated with us, it is safer that you remain with us for large portions of your off time to halt or slow their efforts in tracking you."

Margo sighed. "Would that explain all the purple cars we've been seeing?"

"Yes," Bulkhead said. "We've been keeping an eye on you to make sure nothing happens."

Miko huffed. "Sucks."

"Yup," Margo crossed her arms.

The femme turned her blue-painted helm down at them. "Optimus, are you sure we should keep them here? They have no protective shell. If they get underfoot, they will go squish."

"Then for the time being," Optimus said musingly, "we must watch where we step."

Arcee bit the inside of her cheek as a beep popped up on the computer.

"Blasted Earth tech!" Ratchet groaned. "Cliffjumper's life signal just popped back online!"

This caught the attention of every single bot. Optimus knelt down and let the four humans climb onto his hand, depositing them on the balcony where a faded yellow couch and a television set lay. "Are you certain it's him?"

"Of course he isn't alive!" Ratchet yelled. "It's another damned bug! The system's chock full of 'em!"

"If there's ANY chance Cliff's alive..." Arcee couldn't say the rest.

"Ratchet, set the coordinates and prepare sickbay," Optimus ordered, sliding on his battle mask.

Ratchet waved his hand. "I know the drill, old friend."

Ratchet entered the coordinates and pulled down on the groundbridge lever. The rings lit up one by one, leaving a swirling vortex of blue and green. Optimus, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee were all cars. Arcee, however, became a motorcycle.

Margo's eyes widened. "Fuck. That's a fucking feat of techno-fucking-logical engineering, there! How the fuck do you get a fucking transporter?"

"Do you ever stop swearing?" Jack hissed.

"Not unless given proper incentive," Margo said absentmindedly. "So, Weyoun 8?"

"A feat of technological engineering that would no doubt escape the puny minds of the likes of you," Ratchet said.

Margo stuck out her tongue at the bot. "No, seriously."

Ratched sighed dramatically. "A scaled-down version of spacebridge technology. We currently neither possess the technology, nor the energon to transport offworld-"

"So you're stuck here. With us," Jack completed.

"Indeed. However, I was able to construct a groundbridge with the meagre supplies I was able to find on Earth."

"So you can transport anywhere on Earth, but not anywhere else," Raf said.

It was nearly ten minutes later when a call for the groundbridge came, nearly deafened by the whoosh of burning fire.

Most made it through without incident. Optimus, however, had to backflip through the bridge as his armour shifted back around his arms and legs, as Ratchet closed it before the Bridge was damaged.

Arcee was subtly leaning against Bulkhead.

"Report, Arcee," Optimus said.

The blue and pink motorcycle moaned, holding her left arm. "He was- he was glowing purple where it should be blue. I don't know what happened."

Before she could collapse, Bulkhead caught her.

**"Cee! Are you alright?"**

"I'm fine, Bee. Just dizzy."

"Robots who get dizzy?" Miko asked quietly.

"Robots with emotions," Raf confirmed.

"Robots who can die." Jack said, eyes narrowed.

Margo flicked Miko's and Jack's ears. "Robots who are sentient."

Ratchet scanned Arcee. Finally, his search stopped on her purple liquid-stained arm. He lifted it speculatively, careful not to touch the liquid itself. "What is this?"

"That's the weird glowy purple stuff," Arcee said, voice wobbly. "Cliff was covered in it."

Ratchet took a sample with a scalpel as Jack took out his phone.

"Go take a decontamination bath, now."

Just as Arcee entered, there was an alert. Optimus grabbed Margo and Raf, while Ratchet grabbed Jack and Miko. They were both put inside the two, and closed their chassis before the elevator opened.

"I would suggest you be quiet," Ratchet hissed quietly. "You'll be let out in a minute or two."

"Anything you'd like to get off your tin chest, Prime?" Fowler asked. "Because there's been thirty-four fender benders, a three-hour traffic jam, a half-destroyed drainage pipe, and of _particular_ note, random and wanton destruction of property because of red laser blasts, numerous reports of a speeding blue motorcycle of unknown make, and a black-and-yellow custom muscle car."

Optimus waited a few seconds to be sure he'd stopped. "Agent Fowler, we have the situation well in hand."

"They're back, aren't they?" the agent asked.

"If you are referring to the Decepticons, I have doubts they ever left."

Inside Optimus, Margo had sat backwards in Optimus's drivers' seat, and was tinkering with his radio. Optimus was very pointedly keeping his faceplate steady despite the classical music in his audials and resisted the urge to open his chassis and let her out.

"Then it's time to wake up the Pentagon."

"Agent Fowler, we are your best, possibly your only defense against the Decepticon threat. Involving humans will only result in additional loss of life."

Fowler looked around. There was a bot missing. "You lost Cliff, didn't you?"

Optimus nodded. "We did."

Fowler sighed. "It doesn't change the fact that you've got to handle this threat, under the radar. If you can't, we will."

"Acknowledged," Optimus nodded.

Fowler walked back to the elevator and got in.

Optimus's chassis immediately opened when the elevator closed. "Margo, I would ask that you do not play with my recordings."

Margo winced. "Sorry, boss bot. I haven't had any tunes since I came here."

"A security precaution," Optimus explained. "The silo walls isolate all radio waves."

Jack suddenly shot a look at his flip-phone. "It's TEN! Optimus, if I don't get home an hour ago, my mom's gonna send the cops out looking for me!"

Optimus tilted his head. "Have you broken a law?"

"Curfew!" Jack exclaimed, trying in vain to call his mom. "It's not a work night, I had to have been home since nine-thirty!"

Miko's eyes widened. "Crap! I'm usually home earlier than this too!"

"I better get home, too, or I'll be grounded for a year," Raf said.

Margo ran her hands through her hair. "Fuck! I'll get kicked out of the fucking program for this!" She took in a long inhale through her nose. "Okay, there's a tree outside my window. I'll be fine as long as I can get in that way."

Optimus tilted a brow. "Human customs. I hadn't considered. However, the issue of your safety remains. Bulkhead, accompany Miko home."

"Camo mode?" Bulkhead asked.

"Indeed," Optimus confirmed. "Bumblebee, you'll accompany Raf. Ratchet?"

"Busy!" came the answering call.

"Arcee, you'll accompany Jack."

Arcee feigned a wobble. "Ugh, still dizzy."

"You're fine, says your physician," Ratchet said, waving a noncommittal hand.

Arcee sighed, resigned, and transformed.

Margo looked around. "You're the only one left," she said.

"It would seem so," Optimus agreed and transformed, opening his passenger door for the brunette. "Let's go."

It was deep night outside. The four vehicles were led by Bulkhead until they got to the edge of the city, where everyone paused to ask their charges where they were going.

Bulkhead and Bumblebee went left. Arcee continued straight, and Optimus turned left.

Jasper was a rather small town. But the stress of the day made the girl slowly fall asleep in the warm safety of Optimus's seats.

Optimus regretted activating his holoform to wake her up, but they were at her home. "Margo."

Margo twitched. "Cinq minutes de plus, maman."

Optimus shook her a bit more. "Margo, you must wake. We are at your home. _Margo!_"

The teenager finally stirred and started when she realized where she was. "Sorry for falling asleep in you, OP."

The girl got out of his compartment, and he drove away when she was inside via unlocked window.

It was twenty minutes later, when Margo was tucked into bed and under her covers that her eyes snapped wide opened again and she ran a hand down her face. "Fuck. I still don't have my school bag."

~?~

Optimus was there early Saturday for her, and waited patiently until the girl got out of the house.

It didn't take long, but the girl directed him to the school first.

Miko's miscellaneous colouring pencils were gone, but her bag had thankfully fallen off of the rail and was hidden by a bush. She retrieved it and put all her belongings back in the bag, and then returned to Optimus.

"Back to base, please," Margo said. Optimus obliged.

They sat in silence for a while, until the girl spoke up again. "Hey, do you got any fliers with you?"

"No," Optimus said simply. "Many of the fliers joined the Decepticon cause."

"Is... there a reason for that?" Margo asked as the base door closed behind them. Optimus opened his door, Margo climbed out, and Optimus transformed. The brunette had to jog to keep up with his steps.

"Seekers need a higher-grade Energon to fly, and without flying, they often go mad," Optimus said. "As being a part of the war effort ensured a steady supply of good energon-"

"The fliers had to join either side, or they'd be killed," Margo sighed. "Okay, so then why did they mostly join the Decepticons?"

"A substantial amount joined the autobots, as well. However, the decepticons had far more of a supply than the autobots, and probability suggested they'd have an easier access to energon than if they'd joined the autobots."

"Then, what happened to the fliers on your side?"

"They are not here. The dependence we have on energon necessitates we ration our stockpile in mid- to low-grade cubes. High-grade simply isn't an option."

"And since fliers don't want to go insane, they don't stay on this planet except with the people who have the most access to high-grade," Margo completed.

"Not precisely. To be more exact, I advise any Autobot flier that they can stay with us, but the energon deposits on this planet's moon and on Mars are much less heavily guarded due to their relative rarity, and they often do not stay."

Margo nodded. "Right."

When they got to the main room, Ratchet was about to be jumped by a purple glowing spider-thing.

"Erm, what the fuck was that?" Margo looked up at the Prime.

"I believe it was dark energon," Optimus said while kneeling so Margo could climb onto his hand. She did, and got lifted up to the balcony.

"Dark energon?" Ratchet asked. "I suppose that would explain Cliffjumper's life signal popping back online, but it's so scarce as to be virtually nonexistent. What would it be doing on Earth?"

"Well, why is regular energon on Earth?" Margo snarked.

Ratchet paused, voice caught in his throat. He finally exhaled. "Point. But who brought it here?"

"Megatron."

"Right," Margo said. "But then, why now?"

"In order to raise an army of undead warriors."

Ratchet guffawed. "Well, he'll have to break quite a few toaster ovens. I mean, where in his galaxy is he going to find that many cybertronian dead?"

A sound of revving engines interrupted Optimus's answer.

The six others came racing up to the main room, laughing, oblivious to the dire conversation between Ratchet and Optimus.

"Autobots, prepare to-" He paused, looking down at the children.

"Roll out?" Arcee finished.

"Remain here," Optimus corrected. "Ratchet, you'll come with me. Arcee, we'll be outside communications range for quite some time, so I'm putting you in charge."

"Optimus, with all due respect, playing bodyguard is one thing. Babysitting's another! Besides, Ratchet hasn't been in the field since the war."

"My pistons may be rusty, but my hearing's sharp as ever," Ratchet hissed.

"For the moment, it is strictly reconnaissance," Optimus said. "Look after Margo."

**"Optimus, why do I hear an edge in your voice?"** Bumblebee buzzed.

"Bumblebee, much has changed in the past twenty-four hours. We all have to adapt. Ratchet?"

He activated the ground bridge, which Bumblebee powered down as soon as they made it through.

"So... What's on the activities list?" Jack asked.

"I'm going on patrol," Arcee said.

"But-"

Anticipating his argument, Arcee said, "I know, and I still need to blow off some fragging steam! You're in charge, Bulkhead. Bee, with me!"

Bee looked down mournfully at Raf and mumbled something in between **"I don't wanna"**,** "Coming reluctantly"**, and **"But cartoons!"**.

The both of them transformed and sped away.

Bulkhead looked nervously at the kids. "So, wh-"

Margo interrupted him. "I'm going to sleep on the couch. Be quiet."

Thankfully, Jack had taken the opportunity to suggest a video game tournament. They were all able to play since Jack, Miko, and Raf were squished in his two front seats with a remote each and Bulkhead played by steering his wheel.

They didn't get far before the proximity sensor woke Margo. The brunette looked at the blinking green light as Bulkhead transformed, making sure they were all inside his chassis.

"Margo, hide behind the couch!" Bulkhead hissed as the elevator whirred. The girl complied.

"Prime!" came the angry yell.

"He's not here, Agent Fowler," Bulkhead said.

"Then where is he?" Fowler asked angrily. "No wait, don't tell me. He's pancaking a mini-mall, isn't he!"

"That only happened once!" Bulkhead argued weakly. "And he was in holoform mode!"

Fowler was about to answer ("IT HAPPENED ANYWAYS, AND THAT'S MY GO-TO WHENEVER I'M MAD, SO DEAL WITH IT") before he saw Margo's books, spread all over the couch where she was studying for her chemistry midterms.

"Since when are you bots studying high school chemistry?"

Bulkhead froze, unable to respond.

Margo sheepishly got out from behind the couch. "Hiya."

"Contact with civilians?" Fowler looked shocked, and then angry. "Team Prime has _really_ gone off-book this time."

"No, you've got it all wrong! I'm an... a student intern, here studying... comparative alien/human... socioecology?" Her voice tampered off into almost a question.

"Oh, really?" Fowler asked. "Let's go, kid. It's for your own protection."

Bulkhead picked her up and put her on his shoulder. "We're protecting them."

"_Them?_" Fowler asked. "Don't tell me. He brought home the mini-mall!"

"Excuse yourself, you don't know my pronouns!" Margo tried.

"No!" Bulkhead said. "They saw 'cons. We had to bring 'em here."

"You said you'd handle this under the radar! I don't know how different things are on Cybertron, but on THIS planet, 'under the radar' means 'having avoided detection'!" He took a deep breath. "Where are the others?"

"A-fucking-gain, pronouns!" Margo's riposte fell on deaf ears.

Bulkhead opened his chassis, revealing the three other humans. He held out a hand for them to climb on. Miko went without question, and Jack immediately followed, chased by Raf.

Fowler's eye twitched. "Alright, kids, you're coming with me. It's for your own protection."

Bulkhead raised them above Fowler's head. "I _said_, we're protecting them."

"Really?" said Fowler, a sarcastic drawl in his voice. "I guess you won't mind explaining that to my superiors at the Pentagon, then?" he said, reaching for a phone.

"Don't use that phone, it's-"

Margo took the nearest crowbar and smashed it against the phone booth as hard as she could.

"-out of order," Bulkhead finished pathetically.

Fowler snarled. "This isn't over, though guy. Not my a long shot."

He stormed off in the elevator, and the proximity sensor tampered off into a small, annoying beep until he was out of range.

It wasn't even thirty minutes later than a distress signal sounded.

"It's from Fowler!" Bulkhead said. He tapped a few keys until a beeping red dot popped up with an error message. "Location scan was incomplete. Oh, well."

"Oh, well?" Margo said sardonically and raised an eyebrow.

"Fowler's a jerk!" Bulkhead said.

"Whoa!" Jack exclaimed. "Whether you like the guy or not, the Decepticons may have him!"

"And Agent Fowler knows your location!" Raf added. Apprehension came a moment later. "_Our_ location."

"And did we not just witness how fast Fowler backs down from a 'bot?" Miko had her hands on her hips. "The 'Cons will totally make him squeal!"

"I don't have his coordinates!" Bulkhead protested. "Fowler could be anywhere!"

Raf bit the inside of his cheek. "Not necessarily. A few years ago, the government started microchipping their agents, like owners do with pets."

Margo blinked. "Uh, what?"

Raf looked up. "What? I saw it in a documentary. Anyways, if I can hack into the feds' mainframe, I might be able to catch his frequency."

"How do you know how to hack?" Miko asked. "You're like, two years old!"

"Fingers, Miko?" Margo asked. Miko'd always had a problem with exact numbers in English, like Margo had a problem with locations and proper names (grandmother, father, brother, etc) and usually defaulted to French.

Miko groaned, clenched a hand into a fist. Five-five-two.

"Twelve," Margo corrected for Raf.

"And a_ quarter_," Raf said, like it made all the difference.

It was a few minutes before Raf got the coordinates. "Latitude, 39.5. Longitude, 116.9."

Bulkhead entered the coordinates, and opened the bridge.

"Okay, wait here," Bulkhead said.

"Aw!" Miko said. "But what about our game!"

"We can finish it later. Jack, you're in charge!"

Margo sighed tiredly. "I seriously need some fucking sleep. Good night."

She settled on the couch, took off her purse, and curled up under the lap blanket.

"I guess we three have the run of the place," Jack said.

Margo waited for Miko's whining about missing the action. Two beats. Three.

She sat up. "Mimi?" she called, knowing she hated that nickname. "MIMI?"

The usual answering 'whaddaya want, fuckstick?' never came.

The girl sighed, got out from the warm blanket, and walked over to the second balcony. "Miko probably went with Bulkhead, the fucking adrenaline junkie. Raf, can you access Bulkhead's comm frequency?"

Raf went up to where Margo was standing, plugged in his computer, and started messing around a bit. "The comm signals are all here. See, Ratchet and Optimus are staticky, but Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee are still stable."

"Get to Bulkhead first," Margo ordered.

"Comm line opened," Raf said a few seconds later.

"Gogo to Bulkhead. Bulk, Miko's with you. Find her, make sure she doesn't get fucked up!"

_"I already have her,"_ Bulkhead said.

"Good," Margo said. "Do you want me to call Arcee and Bee?"

_"Yes. Bridge them to the same coordinates I'm at,"_ Bulkhead said. _"But, uh, make sure Cee knows what you're doing first. She doesn't like being interrupted when she's on one of her stress drives."_

"Got it," Margo said. She looked at Raf, who instantly clicked away Bulkhead's comm signal and clicked into Arcee and Bumblebee's. "Gogo to Arcee and Bee. Guys, Fowler's been kidnapped, and he's on the Decepticon warship. Bulk's after him, but he really should have backup, since Miko was being a fucking idiot."

_"Hold on, what?"_ Arcee said.

"Look, we'll explain later!" Margo said. "Raf, lock on to their coordinates and activate the ground bridge."

Raf tapped a few things on the computer, and the hand levers moved on their own. Arcee and Bee came speeding through, and waited in front of the ground bridge for Raf's bridge.

Raf then tapped a few things into the computer, and the levers moved again. Arcee and Bumblebee moved, and they were out again.

Margo blinked, and Raf and Jack were gone too.

The girl sighed. "I'm never gonna get any fucking sleep, am I?"

They called for a bridge an hour later. Jack and Raf were shaken up, Fowler needed some electricity-related medical care, and Miko was just shaking from giddy excitement. Arcee, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead looked no worse for wear.

"You three okay?" Margo asked.

"No, officer, I swear I don't know how my washing machine got in a fight with a kangaroo!" Fowler said dazedly.

"I'll take that as a firm 'fuck, no'," Margo said. There was a beeping on the monitor, and this time Arcee answered the hail.

_"Arcee,"_ Optimus said. _"Lock on to our coordinates and prepare to bridge us back."_

Jack looked at the bots. "So, who wants to tell Optimus about today's activities list?"

Bumblebee's doorwings drooped. **"Ill do it."**

"Absolutely not!" Bulkhead said. "This was my fault. I'll take the blame."

**"But Jack and Raf followed us right after we left too, and Arcee was meant to be in charge, not you. We're all to blame."**

"Well, not me," Margo mumbled. "I tried to stop all you fucking morons, and I actually stayed behind so you had a means to get your sorry asses back here."

Arcee moved the levers, and the rings lit up green, blue, and purple. It was only a few seconds before Optimus and Ratchet stepped through. A deep gash marred Ratchet's right shoulder, and Optimus immediately set to work welding it shut.

"Hey, boss bot," Margo said. "Arcee has something she wants to tell you."

~?~

Margo fell asleep as soon as she was in Optimus's passenger seat. Her books could stay at the base for now - she was clearly too tired to remember a thing about them.

He had to wake her up via shaking again.

"Merde, pas encore," Margo moaned. "Why do I always fall asleep in you?"

"I do not know," Optimus said.

She sighed, sat up, and got out. "See ya tomorrow, OP."

His holoform nodded. "Tomorrow."

~?~

Margo was curled against her guardian's neck wiring as they discussed the plan for getting to the space bridge.

"We will leave as soon as Arcee gets here," Optimus said.

"She's not going to be focused if Jack doesn't come," Margo warned.

"I know," Optimus said, "but we still need everyone we have if this effort is to succeed."

She adjusted her arms. "Since Cliffjumper's gone, you'll have to adjust to his absence."

"I am certain we will compensate well for his absence."

"Because you have no other choice, right?" Margo said.

"Indeed," Optimus confirmed.

"Anything we can do from the human side of shit, let us know," Margo half-ordered.

"Acknowledged," Optimus said.

"Let me down, please," Margo said. "You'll need to be ready for when she comes."

Optimus obliged and let her down on the couch.

"I'd wondered where I'd left my books," the girl sighed as she picked up her social studies textbook.

Arcee arrived at about the same time with Jack.

"Hey, guess who's back," Jack said.

"Autobots, prepare to roll out."

Arcee transformed. "Where to?"

"The final frontier," Miko said.

"Space?" Jack said. "I thought they didn't have any way to get there."

"Ground bridge," Margo said. "If it can transport exactly halfway across the world, then it can more than likely transport anywhere within a radius of twelve thousand seven hundred and forty-two kilometers, which is a fuck of a safety margin. The issue is the vacuum - it's cold enough to freeze their nuts and bolts off. There's no wind chill or fucking snow, so they should be okay for a certain time period, but after that they really should be getting back inside where it's warmer, or they're majorly fucked."

"Margo is correct," Optimus said. "Ratchet, do you have the space bridge's coordinates?"

"Yes," Ratchet said.

"Then activate the groundbridge." He looked to Margo.

Her eyes narrowed. "You better come back, you... hairbag?" she tried for the proper expletive.

Optimus blinked at the odd name. "I know, my charge. I will return."

Jack looked up at Arcee. "Um. Be seeing you?"

She smiled and stood ready in front of the swirling vortex.

"Be careful, Bee," said Raf.

**"I will be****,"** Bumblebee said.

"I'm so jealous!" Miko moaned.

"Don't even think about following me," Bulkhead warned.

"Optimus, if you leave me on a planet teeming with humans, I will never forgive you," Ratchet hissed.

"Until we meet again, old friend," Optimus bid, battle mask sliding into place around his mouth.

Margo kinda spaced out after that. She understood they were on the Space Bridge, and there was a lull which resulted in them finding out the Decepticons couldn't target Cybertron with the space bridge.

"From what I know of Earth technology, I doubt they possess a radio-telescope dish powerful enough."

Raf was already looking it up. "Uh, what about a bunch of linked radio-telescope dishes?"

"Like the giant size array in Texas?" Margo elaborated.

"Zip-bup-gup-buh-guh! This is not child's play!" Ratchet hushed.

Margo flipped so she was balancing on the railway. "Excuse you, but we know way more about our own planet's technology than you do about it. Especially Raf."

_"Good thinking, Raf, Margo,"_ Optimus praised. _"Is Agent Fowler capable of clearing the base of personnel?"_

Jack rushed over to the other balcony where the government agent was being kept. He poked Fowler's rib. He twitched and sat up abruptly, looking dazedly at Ratchet. "You, soldier! You're out of uniform! Put on some pants!"

Margo blinked. "Well, I mean, he's more coherent than he _was_. But no, he's still not in any condition to be doing anything. Especially because of... what I think is a lightning attack? Maybe? I dunno. It's totally fucking unclear. But electric damage causes damage to the brain."

"It does?" Ratchet asked.

"Yeah. Like, we're okay with small amounts of electricity - that's how we can even have static shocks in the first place. But too large amounts, and we can end up with permanent brain damage."

_**"Why are you affected by more electricity than usual? Wouldn't it simply be absorbed and be dealt with later over a long period of time?"**_ Bee asked.

"Can you drink an entire ocean?" Margo riposted with a raised eyebrow.

Ratchet winced in answer.

"Yeah," she drawled. "It's why we've got him on an IV in the first place. This delirious, he's probably lacking fluids somewhere. I'm gonna check him for burns in a while."

Raf, meanwhile, was tapping away at his computer. The long lines of code turned into paragraphs, and Raf was looking more frustrated by the second. "I can't breach the firewalls! They're too thick!"

Jack took a deep breath. "Hey, Raf. Spitballing here, but what if you were all the way in? Like, all-the-way-inside-the-building in?"

Raf adjusted his glasses. "I might be able to get past the firewalls easier if I was on site..."

_"Are you certain?"_ Optimus asked. _"I do not wish to endanger your lives."_

Margo blinked. "Oh, guardian of mine, you're talking to stubborn-as-fuck motherfuckers who don't want to see their planet reduced to a fucking crisp. Excuse us for being a bit motivated."

"This is bigger than the safety of us four humans," Jack agreed.

"Yeah! If we don't do this, we're fragged, along with everyone else on the planet," Miko said.

_"Raf?"_

"I wanna give it a shot," Raf said.

"Well, alright. Let's get going, no time-wasting. Ratchet, fire it up."

~?~

"Whoa, there! You okay, M?"

Margo moaned and picked herself up. "Should'nt've had chilli sandwiches for lunch."

"Right, well, let's get going," Jack pulled Margo by the arm, and she nearly heaved again.

Thankfully, there was almost no one touring the halls. They got to the radio-telescope room without issue.

"I'm in," Raf said, "and so are the decepticons."

"How can you tell?" Jack asked.

"I recognize those schematics from the space bridge diagrams," Raf said. "They're locked on to Cybertron. I'll just fix that," he said, changing them back to random point.

They switched back within seconds. Raf was constantly battling to get ahead, interrupting the code any way he could.

"Can you trace the signal?" Margo asked.

The door opened. Jack and Miko looked back, staring at the tentacle slithering into the room.

"Motherfucking Fuck, it's in the fucking building!" Miko screamed.

Margo, Miko, and Jack kept the tentacle distracted while Raf continued to code and play the game. That was, until the tentacle threw Raf against the ground and Miko dropped her axe. The axe chopped through the computer like butter, and then receded from the room.

"Wha-" Raf moaned, holding his head. "Follow it!"

Miko and Jack were already running. Margo was kneeling beside Raf and running her fingers through his hair to check for bleeding. "You good? Do you know where you are? What did I have for lunch today?"

"The decepticons!" Raf sat up, but Margo pushed him back down.

"Answer the questions."

Raf sighed. "I'm alright, I think. We're at the linked radio-telescope array in Texas, we got here via ground bridge. You had chilli. Or chilli sandwiches? I dunno, I wasn't really paying attention."

"Short-term recall looks okay," Margo muttered. "Can you stand?"

Raf got to his feet.

Miko rushed back in. "Decepticreep cut a wire!"

"The hard line?" Raf gasped, rushing out of the room to where Jack was still standing. The axe stuck up out of the cracked tiles on either side of a bundle of cords. He moaned. "The hard line. The dishes are locked on Cybertron for good," Raf said mournfully.

Margo's eyes softened, and she moved. "You did great, Raf."

"I wish," Raf said angrily. "The most I got were schematics."

"Still useful," Margo said. Miko, the only one who'd managed to collect every single bots' contact info, called Ratchet for a bridge.

They were barely through when Optimus's half-panicked call came through. _"Ratchet, Megatron has sent the dark energon vein through the space bridge. We must destroy the space bridge!"_

"Raf's got construction schematics," Jack said immediately.

"Optimus, I must ask. Is this the only option?"

_"I believe so, old friend,"_ Optimus said.

"Then by all means," Ratchet said eagerly.

Raf connected his USB key and Ratchet quickly pulled up the file. He methodically directed Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee while Optimus played decoy for Megatron.

It wasn't long before the Bridge was being destroyed. That was similarly when Optimus called for a bridge.

Ratchet checked his wrist for the vitals. "Four life signs, one very faint."

A stab of worry shot through each of the humans for the sake of their guardians.

Optimus came through first.

"NARC-BOSS!" Margo yelled enthusiastically, hugging his ankle. "I was worried."

Optimus lay his hand flat against the ground. Margo got on his hand and got lifted up to his neck cabling, where she immediately knelt against the pulsing warmth. "I know, my charge."

Bulkhead came through next, and was greeted with the same enthusiasm as Optimus. "Bulkhead!" Miko yelled, coming up to his knee and hugging him close. Bulkhead smiled.

Arcee came through next, carrying Bumblebee. He looked inexplicably tiny in the arms of the motorcycle.

Ratchet stepped closer. "We lost one this week. By the AllSpark, don't let it be two."

Raf came up close, and climbed up Bumblebee's servo.

The yellow bot opened his eyes and looked down at the little human. **"Raf, you do know there are other muscle cars in the world, right?"**

"This isn't about sparts cars. It's about friendship," Raf said, lying down on Bumblebee's windshield.

Jack looked up. "You okay, Arcee?"

"Physically, just fine," Arcee answered.

"Psychologically?" Jack asked. "Emotionally?"

"... I'll get there," Arcee answered.

"Prime!" Fowler yelled from where he'd gotten up.

"Ah!" Margo yelled. "You shouldn't be up, you're injured!"

"Earth owes ya one," Fowler said. "I'll need to get to a hospital now."

"Agent Fowler, if I could cash in that favour immediately?" Optimus asked. He looked to his feet where Miko was clinging to Bulkhead's pede and Arcee was speaking with Jack, and then over his shoulder to look at Margo, and Raf curled against Bumblebee's armour as Ratchet got to work. "The human children-"

"Say no more," Fowler said with an almost-smile on his face.

Margo tapped Optimus's shoulder and smiled for real. "We're staying with you?"

"Yes," Optimus said. "We have suffered enough losses, and I am certain you all would be valuable members of our team."

Margo smiled. "Aw, we love you too, metalhead."

**End of chapter one.**

**Note: since I don't have seasons 2 or 3 on Netflix anymore, I'm going to be going off of what I remember, snippets from fanfictions, and crack videos I manage to find on youtube.**

**Season 1, however, is still going to be fairly inconsistent. Because consistency can go fuck itself. So there.**

**And remember: if you're ever feeling sad (not depressed, if you're depressed get a fucking medical intervention), picture Optimus Prime's holoform getting dragged into a mini-mall pancake joint, in an apron clearly too small for him, serving pancakes to the people and failing to understand the concept of change.**

**Optimus: But you gave me twenty dollars.**

**Pancaker: It only cost five!**

**Optimus: If you did not wish to give me fifteen extra dollars, why did you give me twenty instead of five?**

**Pancaker: Because I don't have the change!**

**Optimus: And you are asking me for the money you payed in excess?**

**Pancaker: Yes! This is not a new concept to anybody! What are you? An alien?**

**Optimus: _instantly vanishes in a dust cloud, leaving fifteen dollars change on the counter and his strained apron fluttering in the wind from his Overdrive mode as he tries to get back to the technology store for the adapter Ratchet had asked him to fetch._**

**Pancaker: _blinks._ Okay, then. I... guess he considers that an insult? **


	2. Science!

Margo grabbed Optimus's front window. "Megatron's death wasn't your fault," Margo said soothingly.

"I am well aware," Optimus said. "However, I... always held hope he'd change for the better before the end."

Margo squeezed the glass frame comfortingly. "You'll be okay."

Optimus turned his head to look at his charge. "I am aware. However, though Megatron may be dead, the Decepticons are not without leadership. Starscream is just as dangerous under the correct circumstances."

Margo patted him reassuringly. "You'll do great. You have for millennia, after all. I know you will."

Optimus nodded.

A loud explosion had him jumping and pulling out a blaster.

"Decepticons!" Ratchet yelled warningly, pulling his own scalpels. Margo sat up.

Raf coughed. "No, just my volcano." The paper mache creation deflated. "Or, it _was_."

"Hold it still, Bulk!" came Miko's voice. "Jupiter needs its red spot!"

Margo poked her head out from Optimus's window and sat back against his neck. "Mimi, you always put-"

"Oopsie!" Miko said, a drop of red paint falling to the floor.

"-too much paint on your brush," Margo finished lamely.

"And don't call me that, fuckstick!" Miko growled.

Margo shrugged and curled up against Optimus's cabling.

Arcee picked up an exhaust pipe contemplatively. "Maybe it needs one of these doohickeys."

"You're a motorcycle, Arcee. Shouldn't you know how to build a motorcycle engine?" Jack asked teasingly.

"You're a human, Jack," Arcee answered back. "Can you build me a small intestine?"

Margo hummed. "I mean, he could, but he'd need a human female and nine months."

"MARGO!" Jack yelped.

"JACK!" Margo mocked.

"What are you doing?" Ratchet asked.

"Science fair projects," Jack said. "They're due tomorrow."

Optimus turned his head to Margo. "Where is yours?"

"Mine's a mold experiment. Location-sensitive. And already mostly done. I've just got to record the final growth tonight, and I'll be fine," Margo said. She yawned and stretched, collapsing lazily against Optimus's cabling. "Two fucking months, it's been driving me up the fucking wall."

A beeping caught Optimus's attention.

"What's that alert for, OP?" Margo asked.

"It is designed to alert us to a moving energon source, whether inside of a living being or exposed," Optimus said.

"So, since it's not you, it's gotta be the cons, yeah?" Margo asked tiredly.

"Most likely," Optimus said. "Bumblebee, your assistance with Raf's project must wait. There is a moving energon alert."

**"But Optimus, the projects are due tomorrow!" **Bumblebee protested.

"And why are you enlisting their help anyways?" Ratchet continued. "What would Bumblebee know of your volcanoes, or Bulkhead of your solar systems, or-"

"Or Arcee of our motorcycles?" Jack asked for extra emphasis on the irony.

"Exactly!" Ratchet said.

"Ratch, I'm gonna stop you right there," Margo said. "I'm pretty sure Bulk, 'Bee, and 'Cee are just helping with the heavy lifting, like actually making the volcano or making sure the planets don't touch the floor while they're drying, or the assembly of the engine. All the research is already done and typed."

"Exactly!" Miko jumped in immediately.

Jack looked helplessly at the collection of materials. "Yeah, exactly!"

Margo blinked as Optimus picked her up and put her on the couch. "You haven't done any actual research, have you?"

"I have!" Raf said.

Miko and Jack remained silent.

Margo pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fucking teenagers."

"You're a teenager!" Miko yelled.

"I'm hardly a typical teenager!" Margo riposted. "I actually have everything I need to get the project done in three hours as long as my host-brother doesn't hog the printer again! You don't even have it _typed_?"

Jack scratched the back of his head.

Margo collapsed dramatically against the faded couch. "You're all useless. Ratchet, do your worst."

The projects were, predictably, a disaster of epic proportions.

Miko's Cybertron model had fallen off its string and cracked the tile. Jack's 'motorcycle engine' was uncontrollable, and ended up destroying a door. Raf had accepted the model volcano graciously, but then spent half the night remaking it correctly so his poster board didn't look out of place. He fell asleep in the middle of his presentation, but at least a hole wasn't blown through the roof.

"And, Margo?" Optimus said. The girl lifted her head tiredly and made a questioning noise. "How did you do?"

"I got an eighty-nine to Miko's five for 'bringing fiction to a science classroom', Jack's forty-eight for 'being unable to control your project and lack of poster board' plus the hundred fifty-dollar damages fine for buying the door that made him sell his moped, and Raf's asking for a postponement, which automatically results in losing ten percentage points," Margo said.

"Well, on Cybertron, you would've been awarded the highest honors!" Ratchet said angrily.

"This isn't Cybertron, ya old bag of shit!" Margo riposted.

**"Ya know, maybe they should've just told Ratchet to back the fuck up,"** Bumblebee blooped.

"Indeed, Bumblebee. The children would have been wise to stray from Ratchet's path," Optimus agreed.

"And don't curse, ya dickhead. Only I'm allowed to do that," Margo chided.

* * *

**Yes, it's short. Sue me.**


	3. Scrappy

Margo had almost planned on waiting for Optimus and his soft seats and nice music and warm heartbeat that was so easy to fall asleep in, but Bumblebee informed her they wouldn't be able to, so she climbed in Bee's back seat.

His seats weren't quite as soft, and the warmth in Optimus's chassis wasn't quite the same in Bumblebee. The music wasn't classical either - it was soft rock from the 70s. She pulled out _Deep Survival_ and continued reading.

She didn't really notice when they got to base, or when Arcee and Jack started speaking. She did, however, notice the ground bridge and Arcee and Optimus standing at the ready.

"The arctic?" Raf asked her guardian, and she snapped back into the conversation. "I've always wanted to see snow!"

"I would invite you to join, Rafael, but the conditions are much too extreme, even for we autobots," Optimus said.

"I understand," Raf said, obviously dejected.

"Nothing really special about it," Margo said flippantly in a somewhat futile effort to keep Raf's spirits up, maintaining her façade of reading, "Just some cold white powder that falls from the sky and melts into water."

At the silence and Raf's face still sporting the frown, Margo's eye-daggers subtly turned to Optimus over the cover of her book.

"But... I will bring you back a snowball," her guardian said.

Raf's eyes brightened immediately. "That would be awesome!"

Margo looked up and closed her book, keeping her index finger on her last page. She smiled at the sight of him. "Have fun, and come back safe ya shithead."

"I will, my charge," Optimus said with an almost-smile in his optics, and then walked through side-by-side with Arcee.

Margo's sensitive ears picked up the sparking at the Bridge Console handles immediately, an Ratchet's following gasp.

'This isn't normal.'

She watched attentively.

"Bumblebee! Bulkhead! Here! Now!"

'Probably dangerous.'

She was carefully keeping her nose pointed towards her book, and her attention pointed towards the remaining bots.

"I need some heavy lifting. The ground bridge is down."

Horror rushed down her spine. It felt remarkably similar to calm.

**"Are Optimus and Arcee okay?"** Bumblebee asked.

"Arcee and Optimus made it through just fine, it's bringing them back that concerns me," Ratchet said.

"You're just giving me more reasons to panic my shoes off here, doc-bot," Margo said.

Ratchet's optics shot over to her. "Margo!"

"_Ratchet!_" Margo parroted, and then turned off her instinctive bitching for three-point-five seconds. "What the fuck is happening to my guardian?"

"He's safe for the moment," Ratchet said, "but he won't remain safe if we don't get the ground bridge back online."

Her eyes darted to the bridge loops, and then back to the eldest. "What can I do?"

"Stay out of our work an-"

"FUCK THAT!" Margo screeched. Miko and Jack jolted in the corner of her eye. "Optimus and Arcee and are going to freeze their nuts and bolts off! I'm not sitting my ass down and pretending like nothing's fucking happening, so you can shove that attitude straight up your ass where you got it from and tell me how I can fucking help!"

"Whoa, what!" Jack said. "Margo, you don't know anything about this technology!"

"Ratchet didn't even know how to code well enough to stop fucking error messages!" Margo riposted angrily. "We know human computers better than these motherfuckers, so they can tell us what needs to be done and we can fucking help, or they can fucking deal with their stupid fucking prejudice and teach us cybertronian fucking technology in line with ground bridges so this doesn't happen a-fucking-gain!"

"Preferably both!" Miko added indignantly.

Ratchet sighed, and looked at Bulkhead and Bumblebee. "You two, panels off, chop-chop." He looked at the girls as a labyrinth of chips came into vision. "You two, these are the circuit pathways. I need some small hands." He picked up two small bands that couldn't even fit around his finger, and handed them to the girls. "These will allow me to see what you're doing."

Margo put hers on, and Miko did as well. Two separate feeds activated on the console, giving Ratchet their full range of vision.

The circuits board was warm with recent usage.

"One of you, go left. The other, go right," Ratchet said.

"I'm right," Margo said. "I'll raise my arm in my field of vision so you know who I am."

"Good," Ratchet said.

Margo was directed by Ratchet, while Miko was directed by Bulkhead.

"Do you see the purple G-26 circuit card?" Ratchet asked.

Margo sighed and wiped the sweat off her forehead. "Yeah. It's the purple one, right?"

"Yes," Ratchet said. "Let me see it?"

She slowly looked over to it, and then raised her eyes. She circled it, adjusting her field of vision so he could watch for damaged aspects.

"Wait!" came Ratchet's booming voice. "Is- is that a burn?"

Margo blinked, came closer to it, touched the edges, and hissed. "Yeah. It's still really hot. But why wouldn't it have burned it entirely, or in a more consistent pattern?"

Ratchet picked up G-26, looking at the marks. "This is... Quite the problem. Girls, come back out."

Margo got out courtesy of Bumblebee picking her up. Miko climbed up the delicate circuitry and walked tightrope-style until she was out of the maze.

"Hey, guys!" Raf called. "Look what I found!"

Ratchet rolled his eyes. "We're busy!" His optics adjusted to the thing in Raf's arms, and he dropped the broken circuit. "AHH!"

The three autobots jolted to their feet and pulled their blasters, Ratchet retreating behind Bulkhead and Bee since they were the only ones with long-range weapons.

"Whoa, what the fuck!" Jack yelped, standing protectively in front of Raf. Margo, on the other hand, actually pulled her knife threateningly as Miko stood in front of Raf protectively too.

"Scraplet! SCRAPLET!" Bulkhead yelled.

"What's a scraplet?" Raf asked, looking over Miko's shoulder.

"The most dangerous vermin ever to crawl upon the face of cybertron," Ratchet said, armour shuddering.

Jack and Miko looked back at the creature sleeping in Raf's arms skeptically. "This?" he asked sardonically, chuckling. "Are you kidding?"

"You're giant robots!" Miko agreed. "Scrappy here is... teeny."

Bulkhead was on the verge of hyperventilating. "You have no idea the damage that teeny thing can do!"

Margo's knife lowered. That wasn't an act. They were genuinely terrified of the little creature nestled in Raf's arms. She looked back at it contemplatively.

"Aw, he wouldn't hurt anything," Raf said.

This was the moment the scraplet chose to wake up. Its sights set immediately on the three bots huddled behind their blasters, and its face split apart, whirring furiously.

It darted away every time Bumblebee shot at it, and then started chomping through the armour on his leg. He tried catching it in his servo, but it ate through the flesh on his servo and started working its way up his arm. The yellow bot managed to brush it off. The scraplet immediately readjusted and started going back to continue his meal, until Raf hit it with a crowbar.

And again. And again. And again, until it was nothing more than a piece of twisted metal on the floor. That's when he abandoned the crowbar and darted back to his guardian. "I'm sorry, Bumblebee!"

**"It's okay, Raf," **Bumblebee said.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Raf asked.

**"I'm fine, Raf!" **Bumblebee said.

"No, you're not!" Ratchet said. "None of us are! Scraplets are infesting the base!"

Bulkhead moaned. "We're _dead!_"

"Not yet, we aren't! We can still leave, right?" Miko asked.

"Technically, yes," Ratchet said, "but Optimus and Arcee are stuck in the arctic. If they do not return quickly, they will surely perish!"

Margo ran her hands through her hair. "Then what are we supposed to do? The groundbridge isn't operational, and scraplets are just gonna keep eating our repair work!"

"Then we need to take out the scraplets," Jack said.

Ratchet scoffed. "They've probably come in a swarm of hundreds of thousands! It's difficult getting rid of an infestation that large!"

"Then we better start working," Raf said.

"I'm not gonna sit down and happily accept my guardian's death! Tell us how we can fucking help!" Margo shouted. "What systems could be affecting the groundbridge aside from that patch of circuit boards?"

"The energy's derived from energon," Bulkhead said. "The fuel line?"

**"The circuit boards still need to be rerouted,"** Bumblebee pointed out. **"A lot of the circuits are damaged."**

Margo scratched the back of her head. "Is there anything else about them we can use to our advantage?"

"They don't like cold climates," Ratchet said. "They tend to slow down."

"What about the computers? Are they gonna be okay in the cold?" Margo asked.

"Yes," Ratchet said.

"Good," Margo said, reaching for the thermostat that controlled the cold, and turning it all the way down, past zero. "It'll take about an hour or two for us to feel the difference since the thermostat keeps the base warm enough, but after that, they'll start getting sluggish. Easy to squish. In the meantime, you bots get your asses the fuck out of base. We can talk over the phone and you can tell us what to do, but otherwise staying here is a fucking death wish."

"Agreed," Jack said. "I'll go with you can kill any scraplets we come across."

Raf jolted. "What if we made one of us the queen of the scraplets?" he asked.

**"The idea was proposed by the cybertronian High Council before the Great War, but no one could get close enough to the blasted things to serve as ground zero for the link, or take one back for experimentation that wasn't destroyed,"** Bumblebee said. Ratchet blinked. **"What? I like reading about failed experiments that we might look into after the war."**

"Right. Even still, we should be able to get close enough to find the relevant information," Raf said.

"But you still don't know how the scraplets would react to having an alien organic as a queen!" Ratchet said. "They could just as easily look on you as they next meal! As I understand it, you do have iron in your blood!"

"Irrelevant!" Margo put her foot down. "You're in far more danger than us! Get the fuck out of here! Miko, go with them. Make sure they're safe."

Miko saluted and ran to keep up with the three transforming cars.

"You two, go find a scraplet. We need to take it apart and see how it works," Jack directed. "I'll set up the computer and get to work on the bridge."

Margo and Raf saluted lazily and went. Sure enough, there were tons sleeping on the walls, in cocoon-like pods.

"Breeding grounds?" Margo asked, staring at the swarm.

"Looks like," Raf said nervously.

"We'll be okay," Margo said reassuringly.

"I know that!" Raf said. "I'm worried about Arcee and Optimus."

Margo sighed and plucked a scraplet baby off the wall, and Raf plucked an adult scraplet from the floor. "So am I."

They rushed back to the main room, which was quickly becoming cold. Jack was back in his hoodie.

Raf went to work analyzing the coding, directing the other two to bring him tools. There were lapses where he was simply coding furiously. Eventually, he had a model for the transceiver done, and was working on building it with Margo's assistance while Jack was directed by Ratchet to fix the bridge.

It ended up looking like a regular headband, only more bunched-together, more metal, and less even.

"Are you done?" Margo asked.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure it'll work," Raf said. He kept it plugged into his computer.

The drilling noise was getting closer. She shoved it on her head. "Scraplets, heed me!" she called. The drilling noise stopped. "You will cease feeding at once! Those who do not obey must be killed or destroyed!"

Several scraplets charged for her. Others got in their way, and were promptly eaten.

She waited... and exhaled. No others came towards her with killing intent. All the scraplets were awaiting orders.

"Land and sleep. Wake up only when I tell you."

So they did, going into hibernation. The little raised grey dots snuggled against the wall, eyes closed. They appeared innocuous enough to a casual observer.

"Raf, if you could set the transmitter to run on heat as a power source-"

"Already on it," Raf said, thumb up He made some modifications to the machinery, and then unplugged his laptop. "If your body heat drops too low, it'll switch to room temperature. If the room temperature is below zero, the circuits will freeze up. Make sure that doesn't happen."

"Will do," Margo said. "Jack? The scraplets are mine. How's the bridge coming?"

"Better. I've rerouted main power and bypassed the central conduits, so it should be operational, but it won't receive power."

_"Have you checked the energon fuel line?"_ Ratchet asked.

"Nope. It must be breaching," Raf said.

"Let's go," Margo said, picking up the tool kit. Jack climbed over the circuit boards and helped to transport a sheet of flexible but durable metal that would support the weight of the energon fuel line.

Sleeping scraplets littered the halls. Raf and Margo kept the sheet in place while Jack welded it shut.

"Okay, the scraplets are asleep and the energon line's repaired. You should come back in now," Jack said over the phone.

_"Acknowledged,"_ Ratchet said.

He very quickly typed in the coordinates and bridged back the two freezing bots. Bumblebee and Bulkhead similarly went though to help support them in case they couldn't walk. It ended with Optimus leaning against Bulkhead and Arcee against Bumblebee as the freezing bots struggled to walk.

Margo climbed up on Optimus's bioberth and draped herself on his arm. It was so cold, it felt like burning.

Optimus sluggishly opened his eyes. "Margo. I am cold. You will be uncomfortable if you remain there."

"I can deal with it," she shivered. "You need comfort too. You almost died."

Optimus send a pleading look at Bumblebee, who got Margo's plaid blanket from the couch and draped it over Margo's shivering from. The boss bot looked half-reprimanding at Bumblebee and was about to open his mouth until he noticed Margo's headpiece.

"I don't remember your coming to base with a headpiece," Optimus said slurrily. His body shivered as he tried to get used to the new warmth of the silo, but was somewhat aided by the fact that it was freezing cold in the room itself. His heating systems wouldn't be going into overdrive trying in vain to keep up with the sudden and violent change quite so rapidly. There was a forty-degree difference to become accustomed to, but at least it wasn't sixty.

"Because I didn't," Margo said. "This is the thing that lets me talk to the scraplets."

Arcee shot awake, a hand blearily turning into a blaster. "Scraplets?"

"It's okay, Arcee. Go back to sleep," Ratchet said, pushing the blue bot down and adjusting a few things on the energon drip. Arcee's optics drooped and she fell asleep.

"Scraplets?" Optimus asked quietly.

He felt Margo's hum more than he heard it. "That's what the pod had in it. We had to find a way to get the scraplets to stop that didn't involve eating every machine in here and then go looking for more, so Raf came up with a code that would connect me to the hive by way of this neural transceiver based on what we humans know of hive minds, cybertronian biology, interconnected computers, and human biotech, and now I'm the hive queen. They're in stasis mode as long as I tell them to be."

Optimus blinked. "It sounds like you had your hands rather full today, old friend."

"I'm only glad the humans were here to help," Ratchet said, plugging a few cables into Optimus's wrist and checking his damaged systems.

* * *

**How's that for fast update schedules?**


	4. Insult the hive? Die

Really, Margo wasn't that interested in parties. She very deliberately avoided everything to do with them. So when Wheeljack's party started, she turned to Optimus and begged him to take her with him on his drive. He wasn't exactly a party animal either.

The drive was calm. At one point, she asked to get some food, and they pulled in to a drive-through. She ordered food. It took about five minutes for it to be ready. His insides smelled faintly of grease when he called rolled into the base again.

They had quite the story to come back to.

Apparently, the Wheeljack they thought was Wheeljack wasn't actually Wheeljack. The decepticons had kidnapped him, replaced him with a Shifter, and at the last minute were saved by the real Wheeljack, who'd freed himself and defeated his doppelganger.

"Is the fake Wheeljack still here?" Margo asked, pointing upwards.

Bulkhead twitched rather violently at the subtle mention towards the scraplets. Wheeljack looked up, but could only see the same roof as always: covered with little metal raised dots.

And then he realized they were covering the platforms, too, except for the one which was tall enough to permit eye contact with the bots. The walkways, the platforms, the support beams, the rock, were all covered with the odd raised dots.

His optic narrowed as he looked closer, and then yelped and pulled his blaster. "SCRAPLETS!"

**"Oh, god, again?"** Bumblebee groaned dramatically.

Bulkhead covered Wheeljack's blaster with his left hand, and gripped Wheeljack's left wrist with a firm servo before he booked it. "Calm down! They're not going to wake up unless Margo orders them to. Yes, it's creepy, but they're useful, and a real asset against people who don't live inside a rock, rely exclusively on technology, don't have any humans to defend them, and are made of fragging metal!"

Wheeljack's blaster twisted back into a servo. "You're sure they're not going to wake up?"

Margo nodded. "Yup. As long as I have this on, they're asleep," she gestured to her headband. "And seriously, I can't believe you didn't tell him."

"It never came up!" Raf squeaked defensively.

"This kind of information withdrawal isn't exactly good for my joints," Wheeljack said. "Is there anything else you're keeping from me that I should be aware of?"

Miko bit the inside of her cheek before replying somewhat meekly, "does 'the decepticons are turning fallen cybertronian soldiers into terrorcons with dark energon and were planning on using them to raise an undead army before we blew up a space bridge' count?"

Wheeljack turned a stink eye on Bulkhead. "Bulk, you should teach your human to lie better."

"Not a lie," Arcee said.

Wheeljack opened his mouth, but found no words, glitched, and fell flat on the floor. Raf, the only human in the way, was pulled out of the way just in time.

Optimus hummed. "That happened quickly. I was certain it would take at least five more stories before he glitched."

**"I'm getting Prowl flashbacks,"** Bumblebee said.

~?~

"So, I'm gonna head out. I'm not exactly comfortable staying in a base full of scraplets. Maybe you are, and more power to you, but I'm gonna try and find a rock not infested with the blasted things."

Margo growled and kicked Wheeljack's pede. "Hey, fuckface! No one insults my hive but me, ya got that?"

Wheeljack looked confusedly at Bulkhead. "Was she like that before being connected?"

"Aggressive, adversarial, and swear-your-head off incredible?" Miko sighed. "Absolutely."

Wheeljack chuckled and stepped back. "Right. Well, I'm perfectly capable of repairing the _Jackhammer_ on my own, no need to help."

Margo sighed. "Bitch, I will have my hive eat your ship if you don't let Bulkhead and Ratchet help you."

Wheeljack did not capitulate.

Margo lived up to her threat.

And now he lived inside the base.

With a sleeping scraplet hive controlled by a vengeful youngling.

Joy.


	5. Really, die you fuckers

Since Wheeljack wasn't exactly comfortable with the scraplet hive living in the base, she'd spread a lot of them out. Most stayed in the rafters or under the floor, out of sight, or in her room and at school. Margo now always had at least one scraplet with her. In her rather large handbag, in her backpack, in her locker, anywhere she could fit one. There were always at least two in each room she visited regularly. During fire drills and lunch time when the teachers were out, she left the little bugs to crawl up the walls and sleep up between the pipes and the ceiling tiles.

The trouble was when someone tried poking around her locker and found the little alien bug. She panicked when she opened her locker, found no trace of her scraplet or of teeth marks on her padlock-locked locker, and desperately called for the metal-eating little flying pirhana-termite.

Vince wasn't really paying attention to the loot he planned on pawning after school until it snapped to attention, opened its mouth wide with a drilling noise, ate through the side of his car, and flew back into the school.

Of fucking course, the bully found Margo cuddling the little bug to her chest, kneeling on the ground, almost on the verge of a spark attack as the little bug chirped and whirred comfortingly.

"Hey! On your feet, Sunet!" Vince growled. "I know it was you who destroyed my car!"

Margo looked up, pale. The bully's words registered, and she stood, her scraplet lodged safely in her arms, her petting the little creature. It was back to being docile, jelly under the little fingers that knew exactly where to curl and scratch. "Then it was you who stole my personal property?"

"No! I just found it lying on the floor!" Vince said.

"I had Scrappy locked in my locker. He's a science project. I wouldn't let anyone see him, much less leave him out," Margo's voice was hard and angry. She was making a real effort not to curse his brains out, knowing she'd get in trouble.

"I want you to pay for it!" Vince demanded.

Margo jolted and her hand halted. "Vince, I'm a patient woman most of the time. I know you don't know me since I prefer to keep to myself, but I do warn you, I will not cowtow to threats. You'll repair your car on your own, and if you keep harassing me for paying for your car because of reparations and something stolen from me, I will tell the teachers who's been stealing the personal property of many, many students." Her scowl turned into a smirk. "Or get your daddy to throw another wad of hundreds at you. Everyone knows how much you love that."

Margo wasn't exactly expecting the punch. Vince wasn't exactly expecting her scraplet to go for the balls.

"Cease!" Her scraplet halted immediately, and Vince's yelling was still readily apparent and very loud. "I'll get a teacher!"

~?~

Their school, like any self-respecting American school, had a fire drill. That was Code Red.

There was a code that Jack knew should be way more unnecessary: Code Black, where if there was a violent attacker, they all hid in various areas around the classroom. His homeroom teacher kept an empty pantry cupboard devoid of shelves specifically because it would comfortably fit at least five people.

Code Green was when everything was okay again.

He'd... forgotten the meaning of Code Yellow.

His teacher obviously hadn't though, and jumped to his feet, closing and locking the door, and waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Jack shrugged and turned back to his lunch, oblivious to Vince in horrible agony three hallways away.

Rafael, however, was in a much closer classroom. Vince's agonized yelling was very, very clear.

The roaring ambulance came rather quickly, and Vince was extracted from the hallway. An extra twenty minutes passed inside whatever classroom they happened to be in while the blood was cleaned off the floor.

"Code Green. Code Green."

Raf exited the classroom and recoiled at the stench of bleach.

Most were in the cafeteria when Code Yellow was initiated, or inside their homeroom classes. Margo was... already out in the corridor, speaking with a police officer, some blood on her shirt, and her scraplet being petted soothingly.

"I'm sorry, I think you've misunderstood the purpose of my project."

"A self-defense method?" the officer asked.

"Yes, but also something that can consume anything metal. It wasn't even targeted at humans, but more like a scrapyard assist. Erm…" Margo looked around and saw nothing. Her eyes locked with his. "Hey, Raf? Do you have a piece of metal you're not really attached to?"

Raf looked through his bag, and found a burst pen casing. He threw it at Margo, whose scraplet immediately reacted. Its eyes slid backwards to make room for the teeth, and they whirred, vibrating like a drill. The pen was consumed immediately and violently. The scraplet became jelly again in her arms and leaned back to sleep.

The officer blinked at the display and Margo went back to petting it. "Well. And you say this project of your was stolen?"

"That's right. I didn't know who had it, but it's programmed to come back to a place where it knows it can find me and wait for me if it doesn't know where it is, and take down anything that it needs to get rid of. Vince's car was in the way. Locked. He asked me to pay for the damages, and I refused. One thing led to another, and he punched me. It reacted to what I thought for nothing but a second, I swear I wouldn't actually have acted on it."

"It has the ability to read your thoughts?" he asked skeptically.

"Computers can read words through eye movements," she pointed out.

The officer shrugged and jotted a few notes. "What, exactly, were you thinking?"

"'Rip his balls off', sir," Margo winced. "I swear I wouldn't actually have done it! People think about causing violent harm or death all the fucking time - they even threaten it! I've threatened people on a regular basis and never acted on it!"

"That said, accidental nor not, assault is illegal."

"Then Vince can fucking sue me! There are fucking surveillance cameras in the halls, they'll know what happened! It was only for a few seconds, I got help, I stopped my scraplet, he stole my things first, he broke into my locker!" she started shaking violently and her grip on her scraplet became a bit tighter.

Yes, it was true. The security cameras had recorded everything. However, Margo was still suspended for the duration of the time Vince was in the hospital, which was at least a week or two.

So for the majority of the time, she was in the autobot base, coding or doing chores with her scraplets.

Ratchet was becoming somewhat accustomed to the hive's presence in his workspace, bringing him his tools or repairing them with regurgitated metals and wires. They were remarkably intelligent.

Bulkhead wasn't quite comfortable with them there, and neither were Arcee and Bumblebee. They'd spent all their lives being terrified of the things. But, at least they weren't freaking out every time they heard a little skittering sound, or try to shoot them.

Optimus was perhaps the best adjusted of them. Or he was hiding his discomfort really, REALLY well. He sometimes let them climb up his armour and sleep between his neck cabling and chest armour.

Of course, Margo mostly did her course work. And frustrated over her maths problems.

Finally, she growled lowly and all the scraplets shivered.

"Margo, do you require aid?" Optimus asked. "You're making the scraplets agitated."

"Sleep, my hive," she commanded idly. They instantly fell asleep, and she went back to scowling at her book. "This question is driving me up the fucking wall," Margo said lowly.

"Oh?" Optimus said. "Can I help?"

They spent about an hour on the problem, and were no closer to solving it.

Turns out trying to divide something that can't be divided really makes one's mind start to go.

Optimus was almost grateful for the frantic call he received from Agent Fowler.

_"Prime! PRIME!"_

"Agent Fowler. To what do we owe-"

_"What else?"_ He answered, cutting off the leader. _"'Cons! Some fuckface shot me out of the sky! I was transporting the DNGS when it happened, lucky it didn't melt down on impact."_

"The what?" Bulkhead asked.

_"Dynamic Nuclear Generation System, aka DNGS."_

"I don't understand," Ratchet said. "Why would Starscream bother with such primitive technology?"

_"I'm guessing to make a big, fat primitive WMD. If this baby melts down, it'll irradiate this state and the four next door."_

"Erm, did Fowler say which state he was currently in?" Raf said nervously.

"I'm a sitting duck out here, Prime. Why don't you cycle up your ground bridge and get this thing to its destination before the decepticons go after it again?"

"I am afraid that sending such a volatile device through the ground bridge is out of the question," Optimus said. "If there were to be an accident during its transmission, the radiation of which you speak would spread anywhere the bridge could potentially reach - meaning, all the planet and much of the atmosphere."

Fowler winced. "You got any better ideas?"

"Yes."

Optimus described his plan. It consisted of, basically, transporting the device on foot until they reached a train. They would continue in another direction, while the DNGS would be transported by military officers on said train and they led the decepticons elsewhere.

"Margo?" Optimus said, and the girl jolted. "Would you mind lending the assistance of your hive?"

The girl smirked evilly.

~?~

The girl scowled.

Scraplets were all over the inside of Optimus, and inside of Bulkhead, Bee, and Optimus's trailer. None of the autoboots were happy about transporting her little critters, asleep though they may be.

Wheeljack adamantly refused to have the scraplets inside of him, and simply continued as if they didn't exist.

The girl was to be travelling inside Optimus, covered head-to-toe in about ten scraplets with five more all over his interiors (as the agreed-upon limit was one hundred scraplets), with Agent Fowler.

Who kept being a fucking disruption.

He was obviously anxious to get the DNGS to its destination, and she didn't blame him with such a volatile device not twenty meters away, but the sleeping scraplets weren't helping with the bots' stress levels.

She slapped her hands over her ears when Fowler started honking. The scraplets squealed when he started shouting too.

"Agent Fowler, is that really necessary?" Optimus asked.

"Oh, don't tell me you're one of those by-the-book drivers?" Fowler asked incredulously.

"Agent Fowler, you're sitting in a semi truck with a girl with sensitive hearing who can control a hive of bugs that eats anything metal. I suggest you be quieter," Margo hissed, cleaning out her ear of earwax.

Fowler didn't really seem to understand her threat.

She raised her eyebrow. "Blood has iron in it."

Now he understood for sure and chuckled nervously at the little creatures with offlined optics, cuddled in her arms and hair, a few recharging, some being petted and were veritable jelly in her hands, optics half-closed with pleasure.

"Would you like some music?" Fowler asked.

"Yes," Margo said, and reached for the disc button. Track fifteen was Optimus's favourite. A gentle classical sonata played in the speakers, and Margo adjusted the volume to something that was comfortable to her.

Fowler hit the off switch when he saw a helicopter in Optimus's rearview mirror. "That's him. The 'Con who shot me down! What's his name? Dingnut? Wingbat? Skyguy?"

"I seriously mourn for any decepticons who have names as bad as those," Margo said sardonically, and also looked out the window. "Mmm, the decepticons all have a similar formatting in purple. Deciding to reformat an entire team of ground-changers and a helicopter? And do the decepticons even have helicopters? I thought it was just jets."

_"I would bet they're human," _Jack said. _"There's no energon reading."_

"I swear, they're the ones that shot me down!" Fowler insisted.

"Then they're a threat. Boys, roll down your windows." Margo closed her eyes and reached for the scraplets in the autobots. "Go for the helicopter first, and then the grounders I direct you to. Leave no trace of them."

The scraplets darted out and ate the helicopter first. They then darted back down and ate the MECH cars. No one survived, their occupants similarly eaten for the iron in their blood and calcium in their bones.

The autobots ignored the screaming with practised ease. Fowler felt a bit sick. Margo covered her ears.

The scraplets came back and settled down rather calmly.

The rest of the trip occurred without incident.


	6. Energon harvester

No, Wheeljack felt no more comfortable with the girl whose metal boot covers were nibbled on by a scraplet as she kicked her feet lazily in the air while reading a book.

He was just creeped the frag out.

He'd seen bots and fleshies alike eaten alive because of the fragging pests before. Even the humans seemed a bit uncomfortable with the bug hive, who slept under the couch, on the table, on Margo, on the couch, in the rafters, anywhere they could be within easy grabbing distance of their Queen.

Who was currently letting her scraplets eat useless burst-pen shells, random fragments Ratchet let her have, spoons, anything. She was starting to carry around boxes of screws in her pockets, ever since they started eating her coin change.

The constant faint drilling made his audial throb.

He was about to transform and go out when eh heard Bulkhead roll up.

"Ugh! You sound just like my parents," and Miko sounded oddly critical for that. What Wheeljack wouldn't give to see his creators again...

"Uh," Bulkhead said, "I thought your parents were Japanese?"

"You may speak a different language, but you say the same things," Miko's eyes narrowed.

"Because we want what's best for you," Bulkhead tried. "That means making sure you go to school, not jail."

Wheeljack really did bolt now. Mushy stuff really wasn't his thing.

~?~

Margo could only blink when she saw Miko come through the bridge, and Bulkhead absentmindedly rubbing his back.

"Bulk got tossed into concrete," Miko answered the unasked question. "Totalled a painting that said where a thing was. But I've got a picture, so maybe upload that."

She gave her phone to Raf, who plugged it into his computer, uploaded the image, and projected it on the screen.

Optimus was immediately called.

"It is indeed an energon harvester. A powerful tool created by the ancients to remove raw energon from any source," Optimus explained.

Margo's scraplets were all firmly against the ceiling right now, save one cradled in her arms being petted. "Right. So... Our figures of ancient mythology knew greek gods?"

"Or they interacted with the greek?" Miko suggested.

"Or maybe they were greek gods?" Jack added.

"No," Optimus answered. "The ancients often used the art of a given era to conceal messages. This fresco was likely a signpost indicating a harvester's location hidden somewhere on this planet."

"Uh, Optimus?" Jack called. "If the harvester removes energon from anything and you all have energon pumping inside you..."

Optimus nodded. "In decepticon hands, the harvester would be a devastating weapon."

"See?" Miko said, turning to Bulkhead for reassurance. "You were a genius to total that painting."

"He was thrown into it," Margo corrected.

**"I mean, Miko's not wrong either,"** Bumblebee said. **"How are the 'cons gonna know how to find the harvester without the fresco?"**

"With high-speed internet," Raf said. "If you do an image search for 'greek god and golden orb', this comes up." He pressed a few keys and the image popped up on the viewscreen, replacing the one of the fresco. "See? It's in a museum."

Arcee looked to Optimus. "That the real deal?"

"Contact Agent Fowler and summon Wheeljack back to base."

~?~

"I hate talking to machines," Ratchet groaned at the voicemail.

"You're a machine, fuckface," Margo said.

"Margo," Optimus warned.

The girl fell silent.

"Without Agent Fowler's direct aid, we will have to confiscate the harvester on our own," Optimus said.

"Whoa, whoa! Confiscate? As in, steal museum property?"

"Well, I don't think he stuttered, Jack," Margo bitched. "But, ya know, that does sound illegal, OP."

"I have no wish to break human law, but once the decepticons learn of the harvester's location, they will not hesitate to obtain it by any means necessary," Optimus said. "We must act covertly."

Jack chuckled awkwardly. "Okay, Optimus, n-no offense, but 'covertly' and 'giant robots' don't really go together."

"What's your point?" Margo asked, trailing gentle touches over her scraplet's body.

"Yeah!" Miko agreed. "We're small enough to sneak in, and we're not a government secret!"

"Miko, I'm not sure that's wise," Bulkhead said.

"But it may be our best option," Arcee shrugged.

"It is the one we will use," Optimus decided. "The longer we debate, the more time we give the decepticons."

"Do you want me to bring my scraplets?" Margo asked.

"Yes."

~?~

_"Sound off,"_ Optimus ordered.

_"Westward ho,"_ Arcee said.

_**"East here!"**_ Bumblebee said.

_"Southside covered,"_ Bulkhead said.

_"Topside down,"_ Wheeljack said.

"We're ready," Jack said.

The groundbridge didn't take long to open.

Margo looked around the museum floor plan. "Fuck, this is disorganized. A dinosaur, ancient greece, I think that's from Easter Island, eastern Asian, I'm pretty sure that's from Egypt - fuck, does this museum not have more than one room?"

Miko took a picture, set it on her phone, and placed it over the security camera so it was covered.

Jack rolled the platform closer, and Margo's scraplets slowly lifted it. Raf was helping to direct the little bugs as Margo murmured little commands and reassurances.

_Crack!_

The three humans looked over to see Optimus holding a missile against the broken pane.

He looked around, a bit confused, until a decepticon shoved a lightning rod into his neck cabling. Optimus stumbled down the stairs too small for his pedes, and fell, dropping the missile. The red mech jumped on the autobot leader again and shoved the lightning staff straight into his neck cabling. Optimus fritzed and vibrated, in too much pain to scream.

"It's cons!" Raf gulped.

"They've got my guardian!" Margo growled. The scraplets dropped the harvester on the platform and Jack had to physically hold Margo back.

"The bots will help! We've got to get the harvester back to base!" Jack yelled.

"Let me go!" Margo yelled, struggling fiercely.

"Ratchet, bridge now!" Raf said into his phone as Miko rolled the machine back to get her own phone, askew from the security camera.

The ground bridge opened immediately, and the platform rolled back through.

The harvester was safe.

Their guardians were not.

The call for a bridge came three minutes later.

Arcee was rubbing a bruise covered by the black paint on her thighs, Bulkhead and a limping Wheeljack were supporting a swaying Optimus who'd suddenly lost all composure and was poking at Wheeljack's faceplate like it was interesting watching the malleable metal dent under his servo and repair whenever he took his finger away, and Bumblebee was carefully loosening the armour plating under his arm.

Optimus stayed on his feet on his own for precisely three seconds before he was picked up and swung over Ratchet's shoulder, carried off into the hallways and another room.

"I have a lovely ass!" the overcharged bot suddenly shouted.

"Uh, huh," Arcee said absentmindedly, walking alongside Wheeljack and Bumblebee as they went to have their minor wounds treated.

"When was I painted white?" he asked loudly as they continued down the corridors.

Arcee's response was lost, but Optimus's answer was not.

"What the frag do you mean, I wasn't painted white?"

Margo looked on in shock, and then turned to the only remaining autobot in the room. "Hey, Bulk, why's my guardian being crazy?"

"He's just overcharged," Bulkhead said. "It'll wear off in a few joors."

"And then he'll go back to being the magnificent jackass he usually is?" she asked, just to confirm.

"Yup," Bulkhead said.

"Wonderful!" Margo said. "Well, all our guardians 'cept you are injured or otherwise incapacitated and can't take us home. Do ya mind?"

Bulkhead didn't mind.

Margo's stop was the last one, so she and Bulkhead decided to talk.

"Hey, why do you curse all the time?"

"Because my family's religious and I'm gay. It's my little way of rebellion," Margo answered.

"Okay. Why do you insult people?"

"Self-defense mechanism. People usually don't get emotionally attached if you curse at the up the wall, so there's no chance of either of us hurting the other."

"So... how did you and Miko get close?"

"We're in the same exchange program. She came here because the brochure made this place seem a lot more exciting than it is, and I chose the first place I could get to that wasn't in a country where being gay is still illegal."

"Being gay is illegal?"

"Oh, yeah. It started about ten thousand years ago in the Bible's book of Exodus. The verse was written wrong. It said 'man shall not lie with another man', when it really should have said 'man shall not rape children, he who rapes children will burn for all of eternity despite the promise of eternal salvation'."

Bulkhead's armour shuddered. "So you're not religious?"

"Nope. I left the church on principle."

"Really?"

"My younger brother's bisexual, and I'm aego homoromantic. My older sibling's nonbinary. A lady at church kept misgendering xir. And also compared all gay people to rapists, murderers, pedophiles, and the scum of the world in an innocent conversation with such a casual manner like she expected me to agree with her. And also the hundreds of bishops and archbishops who kept molesting and raping the altar boys." Her nose scrunched up. "It made me sick that they used a benevolent deity as an excuse for this shit."

So Bulkhead started crafting a plan.


	7. Extra, Extra! Jesus stealing shoes!

Margo waited until Optimus was out of the room before turning angrily to Bulkhead. "What the fuck did you do?"

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific. There're a lot of things-"

"I'm talking about this," Margo said, typing a few things into the monitor so a news article popped up, "OBVIOUSLY!"

**Second coming? Jesus shows up, steals shoes, lectures, and leaves**

"Nothing to do with me," Bulkhead said. "Maybe your deity really did steal someone's shoes and leave."

Margo's finger hit the video.

_"Everything I have comes from Jesus! Even my shoes came from Jesus!"_

_Bulkhead's holoform suddenly materialized behind the preacher. "Excuse me, Bob, but can I have those shoes back?"_

_The preacher jumped out of his skin. "Jesus!"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Why are you here?"_

_"Because I need better shoes. My sandals are growing on me," Bulkhead gestured to his feet, where the sandals were in tatters, preactically falling apart._

_The preacher got on his knees, untied his laces, and shakingly gave Bulkhead his shoes._

_"By the way, you mistranslated the book. Gay people are valid. Paedophiles and their enablers are not, and I will not have them in positions of authority here."_

_"Of course, my lord."_

_"And also, change the church rules. Gay people are accepted and that's final, got it?"_

_"Yes, my lord."_

_Bulkhead nodded, and directed his holoform to fly out of a nearby opened window._

It stopped.

Margo's eyebrow raised. "I know perfectly well how to recognize voices, Bulkhead."

Bulkhead sighed. "Margo, I fought in a war to stop classism and discrimination with peace against people who wanted to stop classism and discrimination with violence. I don't need to see your world torn apart because of it too."

"I didn't miss Rule One. Abusing power for personal gain? Not allowed."

"Not for personal gain! You're not my charge."

"That's a fallacious argument. We both know you did it because I was upset."

"So what if I did?"

"'So what'? Rome wasn't built in a day! Homophobia is only just starting to recover from a two thousand year-old wound! Yes, this might help things along, but it wasn't your place, and society is changing to accommodate those changes."

"Then Rule One gets bent just this once."

Margo sighed. "That's not the way that works. People are starting to think this is the end of days."

"Let them. They'll figure it out in a while."

"But then that random preacher'll be mad you stole his shoes, and discrimination against LGBT people might get worse if they think this was nothing but a prank to make them think Jesus came down here and started to berate them for no reason. So bad that Jesus came to berate him. Not even Hitler got that fucking treatment! AND HE CAUSED THE FUCKING HOLOCAUST!"

"Then I'll just magically appear again."

"What happened to 'just this once'?"

"Not important."

"Yes, it's fucking important! I'll let it slide just this once, but if Optimus asks, I'm not keeping this from him - especially if it happens again."

Meanwhile, Jack was racing with Arcee against Violet, Vince's equally-terrible girlfriend, and had resolved to make her cry for the fact that she'd ever challenged Jack to a race. If only she had cried. It would have made their victory all the more satisfying.

"Dude!" said an excited Miko the next day. "Vroom-vroom-vroom! And the winner is..."

Jack looked around. "Miko, who told you?"

"Wait, what's going on?" Margo asked.

"You're kidding? It's all over school!"

"I'm suspended," she deadpanned.

"Riiiiiight," Miko dragged out. She pointed her thumb at Jack. "This blowhard got in a fight race with Violet."

"Oh. That bitch? Wasn't she suspended that one year for cutting off Rosa's hair, slapped her, and then tried to sue her for punching her back because she thought her boyfriend was cheating but she was just a paranoid, manipulative bitch? And then the judge threw the case out of court because there was video and there was this huge fallout with her old boyfriend because he was the one who recorded? And then she and her mom had to pay for Rosa's lawyer?"

"The very same," Raf said.

"Bitch. Kinda unsurprising Vince is so bad after being around her and his father so long."

"Yup."

Jack dragged Raf closer so they were all huddled together.

"You guys have to keep this on the DL, especially from Optimus."

Margo pulled away. "I'm not keeping this from him if he asks if you specifically went racing. Or if you do it a second time."

"Got it," Jack agreed.

He did not keep his word. Violet challenged him in front of Jack's crush, and he knew he would look like a wimp if he didn't, so he did.

Margo, however, kept hers, simply because she was in the bathroom taking a dump when Jack asked to borrow Bumblebee.

"Where's Bee?" she asked when she came back.

"Patrol," Bulkhead lied smoothly.

"I thought Optimus was doing that," Margo raised an eyebrow.

"No, he's out for a drive. Help relieve stress."

Margo shrugged, climbed up the ladder, and started reading from where she'd left off.

It was about halfway into Raf and Miko's fifteenth run-through of the racing game when Arcee started visibly looking around, and then turned to the children. "Has anyone seen Jack?"

Raf and Miko didn't answer. She looked up and saw the wincing on their faces.

"Bumblebee took him home before patrol," Bulkhead said nervously.

"They're racing, aren't they?" Arcee asked.

"Just this once," Raf said weakly.

The comm lines burst to life. _**"Guys, Knockout's here chasing us! I think he's mad I scratched his paint that one time!"**_

"Bee, do not engage," Arcee said. "Your first priority is keeping Jack safe until I get my hands on him."

Margo sighed and the scraplet curled on her legs shifted in its recharge, whirring and twitching like a puppy. "You guys are all fucking morons."

~?~

It was past one o'clock when Optimus came back from patrol, only to find the lights in the common room in Day Mode rather than Night Mode, and the children still here rather than at home.

In the back of his mind, he expected to find Margo here. She preferred being driven by her guardian rather than anyone else, and everyone else was still rather jittery around the scraplets. Miko and Raf? No, they were perfectly amenable to being driven around by bots other than their guardians. Bulkhead and Bumblebee usually stayed around to take them home. Wheeljack was asleep in his room, and Ratchet was off repairing some broken tool, but he hadn't seen any sign of the youngest three.

"Raf, Miko, Margo," Optimus called. "Do any of you know where the others have gone?"

Margo knew he'd gone out racing again. So fuck it, she was staying true to her word. "Jack's off racing with a bitch to win a girl so they can have naked fun time."

Raf yelped and Miko blushed to her roots.

Optimus blinked and his optics narrowed. "That would explain the disappearance of one of the autobots, but Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee are all gone. Why the other two?"

"Because they were being chased by a decepticon who doesn't like having his paint scratched, and Arcee's the mom friend," Margo said.

Optimus looked up their coordinates on the monitor. Bulkhead and Bumblebee's signals were next to a decepticon bio-signature Bulkhead kept identifying as 'Breakdown', and Arcee was following the decepticon Knockout. His digits flew, inputting the coordinates to assist Arcee as she was the only one alone and Breakdown appeared to be immobile.

Margo yawned and leaned further into her chair. "I don't have enough caffeine for this shit."

"Dude!" Miko kicked Margo's leg. "Why'd you tell him?"

"He's a coding expert and he's been their leader for centuries, Miko. He would have found out anyways. Better now than later, when they're balls-deep in trouble and Optimus can't do anything to help," Margo groaned. "Now shut the fuck up. I'm fucking tired."

She curled up, slumped against the chair, and cuddled up with her scraplet. She was asleep before Optimus got back, three minutes later, with a sheepish Bulkhead, and an Arcee who seemed to want to hide behind the gigantic Bulkhead.

Optimus picked up Margo, and transformed, leaving her in his front seat. His soft monotone voice didn't reach further than her sluggish brain processing the fact that the voice belonged to Optimus, and she didn't wake up since it wasn't loud. She was so asleep, she barely registered being picked up by Optimus's holoform and being carried inside through her window.

She did, however, notice when her host father started screaming the next morning for school time.

"I don't have school, fuckwit! I'm suspended, remember?"

"Oh, right. Fuck, I forgot."

She huffed and fell back asleep, pulling her blanket over her head to block out sound and light.

"Breakfast, then, ya little fucker!"

"No! Fuck off!"


	8. Yeah, no, he has injuries

No one save Arcee and her partner were present at Airachnid's return, simply because the duo were the only ones assigned to the reading. Bumblebee was recharging, Bulkhead was on a drive, Ratchet was manning the bridge, Wheeljack was busy making bombs, and Optimus was taking his first day off in about a century. Raf was at home babysitting his little sister, and Miko was still in detention.

Margo didn't miss the shaking in Arcee's limbs as she walked, or how she held Jack close to her chest like he couldn't walk.

The top part of Jack's sleeve was covered with blood.

"Shit. Did you get the license plate?" Margo asked as she took out carefully wrapped bandages and disinfectant.

Jack blinked. Was this some sort of riddle or code? "What?"

"Of the truck that ran you over," Margo elaborated with a smirk, cataloguing his injuries as best she could without taking off his shirt. "You look like shit and pain fucked each other."

Jack hissed when her fingers pressed into the socket. It was loose. "Can you move your arm?"

He tried, but only got a flash of white-hot pain and screamed. Margo winced. "Okay, none of that then!" She sighed. "Probably dislocated or broken."

"D-disclotated," Jack stuttered.

"Have you had a dislocated arm before?"

"Mm-hmm."

Margo slipped into nurse-mode and immediately arranged the both of them for resetting Jack's arm.

"I'll set in on three," Margo said, shoving a towel in his mouth. "One-" _Crack._

"I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO SET IT ON THREE!" Jack screamed once he could breathe again and he'd taken the towel out of his mouth.

"If I had, you would've tensed in preparation to bear the pain," Margo said softly, gently massaging the shoulder.

Jack huffed petulantly in response.

"Can you move it?"

He tried, and it wasn't quite as pained as before. The sharp stab in his shoulder from where he was thrown against the ground was far more dull. "It's better."

"Can you get out of your shirt on your own? It's bloody."

Jack hadn't even noticed. He tried moving his arm to get his arm off, but stopped with a painful wince.

"It's okay," Margo said gently, getting out her pocketknife. She started with the top shirt, getting at his sleeve and then working her way down. She then slid the destroyed shirt down his arm. His undershirt was far easier to remove, except around his chest, where she actually had to use the scissors from her sewing box. He twitched and winced.

She reached for the medical gloves in the kit, and started poking around to find something in the puncture wound that might get in the way of healing. The cut wasn't the jagged the expected from the decepticons. "Rocks?"

"Yup." He twitched again when she started cleaning away the dirt and rock with her finger. She stopped when the bigger piece were out, and then got a wet wipe, wiping until the only thing coming out was a deep red. Jack winced when she applied disinfectant.

"You're going to have to tell your mom this happened. She's going to want an explanation. I suggest you start crafting an alibi now," Margo said flatly, disinfecting her needle with a lighter and stringing it. She handed him a towel. "I suggest you bite on this."

"Why would he have to do that?" Arcee asked, getting her winglets and back checked out, minor dents and a few blaster burns all over.

"His back needs stitches."

"Wh- I do?" Jack asked.

"Dude, I don't even want to know how you got rocks stuck in your back this bad, or got a dislocated shoulder probably from the same thing? There are splinters all over. Did Arcee throw you into a tree or something?" Margo said sarcastically.

Arcee opened her mouth in defense of herself, but Jack cut her off. "Not Arcee."

"A 'con?"

"Nope," Arcee said. "Way worse. Decepticon-neutral."

"Yeah?" Margo asked, handing Jack the towel again. "Bite down, or have fun biting your tongue off."

"Airachnid's on Earth," Arcee hissed.

Ratchet's plating shuddered. "Black Arachnia?"

"Yeah, she just renamed herself." Arcee rubbed her wrist and her winglets drooped.

Jack winced every time the needle breached his skin. She carefully tied it closer, only able to follow a basic stitching pattern she'd learned in textiles class. This was no fabric, stretched taught under the thread and desperately being kept together. She tied it together with a moan from Jack, pulling the stitches tight.

"So, where'd you learn to stitch people up?" A shaky-voiced Jack asked, taking out the towel.

"My dad came home with a stab wound one day. He's a cop. Mom decided it was a nice time for a teaching lesson in case it ever happened to me." She took the roll of bandages and started wrapping his shoulder. "She'd a nurse. She wants me to be a medical worker too."

Jack darted a glance at her bag. "I've seen you reading. _Deep Survival_, _the Gift of Fear_, _Anatomy of Motive_? Sure are some psychology books."

"My mom's got a whole library back home. I... just took my three favourites."

"No college-level medical textbooks, then?" Jack asked.

"No. I've been listening to them like bedtime stories since I was two months old. I can practically quote the entire books frontside to backside. Been volunteering in the medical sciences since I was ten." She glanced at his cut-up and bloodied shirts. "I could put a few more tears in them, make it look like a struggle."

"And the bandages? Stitches?"

"Good samaritan?" Margo shrugged.

"Tying stitches up this tight, with the wrong stitch method?"

"Bad samaritan."

"Margo, be serious."

"Okay, I haven't actually gone to medical school, Jack. The most I've done is be a gofer, or replacing bedpans. But Mom's been teaching me the stitches on oranges since I was eight."

"Oranges?"

"It works."

"Why the wrong method then?"

"I've been slipping," Margo shrugged. "And I don't have the right needle for this. The medical supplies aimed at humans in this joint are... inadequate."

Jack sighed. "Well, I guess it increased credibility. Mom's gonna want to redo this on her own."

"I wouldn't blame her. This was done entirely by someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Patchwork at best."

"Then why-"

"Because it's better than nothing." Margo picked up her sewing box, sterilized the sewing needle again, and stuffed everything back inside the box. "Say it's something you decided to get for a friend's textiles class, and give it back to me tomorrow."

"And this is also what I managed to get someone to stitch me up with?" Jack asked.

Margo picked up his wallet. "For twenty bucks."

Jack shrugged. "Makes sense. But how did I get it?"

"Three options. Motorcycle accident or mugging."

"I thought you said three options."

"I lied. But good to know there's no discernable brain damage. What colour's my shirt, again?"

"Green with black butterflies and flowers."

"Good. And my shoes?"

"You're wearing boots, and they're black with blue laces."

"Correct. What about my jacket?"

"You don't have a jacket."

"Sweater, then, if you want to be so nitpicky."

"Black, white drawstrings. With a hood."

"Not describe the stitching on my pants?"

"Gold thread."

"And how many fingers do both of us have?"

"Twenty together, ten separately, five on either hand. Your eyes are blue. Your hair's brown. You're trilingual - french, german, and English. The autobots have t-cogs, which is the organ that helps them transform. They get married by merging sparks. Your favorite colour is purple, because you had a butterfly clip with purple sparkles that your mom gave you on your third birthday, just before she left to go to medical school. Raf has glasses. Miko loves a band called Slash Monkey. Ratchet sounds like Weyoun, and that's why you nicknamed him Weyoun 8 on the group chat. Would you like me to describe other random facts?"

"No, but good that you didn't lose enough blood to be snarky. You really should still have your mom take a look at that," Margo said, cleaning off her hands and putting the gloves in the garbage.

Jack shot a look at the lighter on the table. "Why do you have a lighter?"

"Because some idiot gets her daily adrenaline quota by rushing into battle, and blunt-force trauma injuries come just about as often as injuries that need stitches. Needles got to be disinfected, and medical-grade needles are hard to come by and harder to steal," Margo sighed. "Which reminds me, I've got to stock up on bandages before she gets out again. Now, Ratchet, please don't repair any of the dings on Arcee's armour. Not the superficial ones that won't do any damage in the long run. Cee, you can wait til tomorrow, right?" The motorcycle nodded. "Motorcycle accident is likely, and it puts credibility to the fact you still have money to pay for services and a sewing box."

"And also the fact that my shoulder was dislocated instead of broken?"

"It was an impact injury. Take that or your mom worry about who to press charges against for beating up her precious boy, and taking it to the police," Margo shrugged.

Jack sighed. "I guess."

Margo leaned in closer and packed away the medical supplies strewn around the table. "Do you want to talk about what's actually bothering you?"

"No."

"Have it your way. See you tomorrow." She kicked the supply bag under the coffee table and went off.

Ratchet was finally finished repairing the weld on Arcee's winglets, and gave her a small cube of med-grade. Arcee thanked him, sat up, and chugged it.

"Let's go, Jack."

Jack slid on his helmet. "Thanks, Margo."

"No prob, Jack," Margo said. "Sleep well. Make sure your mom takes a look at you."

Margo turned back to her books.

"I didn't know you were quite that acquainted with Earth medicine," Ratchet said slowly.

"Years of practise."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Emergency room got crowded sometimes. Triage kinda forces you to become jaded or let people die."

Ratchet hummed. "Yes, I know. I was a field medic during the war. There were... spark case surgeries I had to do within my first orbital cycle - a month in your time."

Margo winced. "So, how did the war start? Do you know? Optimus never talks about it."

"Then he doesn't want you to know. It isn't surprising, given his part in sparking it."

Margo's head tilted. "What?"

Ratchet shrugged. "If he doesn't want you to know, I won't tell you."

Margo sighed, and took out her phone, coming Optimus. It was easier than finding the training room, and she had him on speed-dial anyways.

"Hey, OP? You done?"

"No."

"Good opportunity for you to work under time constraints, then. It's late, and curfew's in twenty minutes. You're got five to finish your simulation before we have to go."

Optimus ex-vented in response and Margo heard another garbled shriek of metal slicing metal. "Very well."

As promised, Optimus was out in three minutes, battle mask still slid in place. He picked her up without a word, transformed, and sped her home.


	9. Why no psychological effects?

"Optimus, I just picked up the decepticon warship on sensors," Ratchet said, a soft beeping coming from the console.

"How did you penetrate their cloaking technology?" Optimus asked.

"I didn't," Ratchet said. "I was experimenting in the variable frequency wavelengths when I stumbled upon it. Even still, it must be significantly damaged if we're managing to detect them."

A second beeping joined the first. "And on the same frequency, an autobot distress beacon."

"The decepticons can wait," Optimus said immediately. "There maybe autobots in distress. Ratchet, you will accompany me. Bring your medical kit."

Ratchet and Optimus disappeared a few moments later through the Bridge. They didn't get further than the command deck when they determined it was a plague ship, and Optimus was accidentally infected.

He seemed to be walking fine, until halfway through the ground bridge when his knee joints collapsed under him and he moaned painedly. Wheeljack and Ratchet helped him onto the berth, and he lay down, Ratchet helping his boots onto the thick slab of metal that acted as a biobed. Wheeljack recoiled at the thin layer of rust growing around Optimus's neck cables.

Margo watched, pale, as Ratchet said, "Cybonic plague. A deadly genetically-engineered virus invented during the great war. It is only contagious if contact is made with the infected Energon."

Margo had her scraplets carry her over to Optimus's berth, gently put her down, and let her curl up on Optimus's arm. "Why is he restrained?"

"Cybonic plague is just as much a virus that affects the mind as the body," Arcee said. "It wiped out millions of autobots during the Great War, and tons of decepticon drones, but none of the formatted decepticons."

"I always thoughts they had a cure, and so did everyone else, but no one could get to it," Bulkhead said.

"Well, obviously it wouldn't be a run-of-the-mill file accessed by anyone other than decepticon medics and the highest commanders," Ratchet said. "We autobots were never able to discover a cure, but we did study the virus in detail."

**"Encroaching psychosis, rusting, energon recrystallization, massive sparkcasing damage. I saw my best friend get it. His.. doorwings fell off because the nuts were removed."** Bumblebee rubbed his arms. **"Almost as bad as scraplets."**

"Yeah. A lot of limbs were replaced that year," Arcee said, winglets twitching.

Margo sobbed from her place on Optimus's arm.

"For the moment, we can still track the decepticon warship. We should try and access the file again. It's bound to be less protected than usual, none of the usual recryptions, since cybonic plague doesn't even exist on this world," Arcee said desperately.

Ratchet nodded. "Yes. Arcee, Bumblebee, you're the most stealthy."

"I'm better at computering," Wheeljack protested.

"But not exactly subtle," Ratchet said.

"I can be," Wheeljack challenged. "I got around the warship without assistance and managed to avoid any guards that might've caught me. I remember the route to the medbay, I found it by accident when I tried to find the air doors."

Ratcher sighed. "Wheeljack, Bumblebee, you'll go."

"Ratchet!" Arcee protested.

"Yip-yip! Wheeljack's the best option. You do tend to have a more direct approach when it comes to computer,s but Wheeljack's better at coding and computer deconstruction than anyone else here."

"Trouble is not getting picked up by Soundwave," Jack moaned.

"I can handle it," Wheeljack said. "Our leader killed is not what we need right now."

"Just go," Margo said shakily from where she lay on Optimus's arm. "The more time he's like this, the worse he gets."

Optimus's servos dug painfully into the biobed and he started cycling his vents very loudly. Margo moved so he would have room to struggle.

"NOOOO!" Optimus screamed suddenly, lacking all his usual controls for the second time in a month. His voice was pained, echoing around the base loudly, and obviously frightened and stressed. He tried tearing his servos out of the restraints. "MAKE THEM STOP!"

Ratchet pushed him back down on the berth, typed in the coordinates, and the two immediately left base. Margo sobbed and covered her mouth, looking away. Energon lines were visible on his faceplate, and rust was surrounding one of his optics.

"Encroaching psychosis," Raf murmured. "Rusting."

Margo twitched and cried. She lowered herself back down on the biobed and leaned against Optimus's cables, careful not to disturb the rust covering his wires. "Please, be quiet, Raf."

Only Arcee and Optimus's reports made it through the throbbing pain in her skull as she listened to her guardian fight to get better, losing his battle with the disease in his veins.

"Ratchet? Were you-"

"Infected? No."

Optimus moaned in response. His optics fell shut.

The scraplets shivered in response to their Queen's anxiety and fear.

"Sleep," she commanded.

They instantly fell silent and immobile. Docile.

Margo shivered and sobbed. The measured beating of energon lines under Optimus's audial fins were getting shakier, less strong and sure.

Ratchet's frantic yelling was no more than noise under a sea of fog as Margo's hand brushed against Optimus's helm, petting it gently, just to have something to do.

Jack's voice broke through the fog. "-Optimus?"

"Wha?" Margo asked.

"They're going to pull the plug on Megatron!" Raf said at the obviously confused look.

"I should have been paying attention," Margo said.

"It is understandable that you could not," Ratchet said soothingly. "Go back to sleep, sparkling. We'll have this sorted out in a few minutes."

Ratchet had never lied to her before. He'd done the impossible before. She gulped down a sob and looked up with teary eyes. "Promise?"

"I promise, sparkling," Ratchet said, and turned back to the monitor.

So Margo turned back into the conversation.

Apparently, Bumblebee was scouting through Megatron's recreation of Kaon in his unconscious mind and was bargaining for the cure.

**_"If you let Optimus die, you'll never get what you want most!"_** Bumblebee said.

Megatron laughed. _"Oh, scout. And what is it I want most?"_

**_"To kill Optimus yourself!"_**

He chuckled again. _"Did you not see, Scout?"_ The sneering dismissal made the title sound like an insult. _"I do slay Optimus by my own hand, at will, whenever I desire!"_

**_"Sure, in your mind, but in real life, Optimus is totally dying, and that death is not on your sword. If you let the virus kill him, you'll never get to see it yourself."_**

Megatron paused at that. Raf's voice was muddled as she payed complete attention to the shifting on her back where Optimus's pulse lay, and Megatron's pondering.

_"After ages of endless battle, to not watch Optimus's spark ebb before my eyes..."_

**_"That's what you'd like most, isn't it?"_**

_"Well played, Scout."_ A cubic formula appeared above his hand._ "The chemical formula for the cure you seek."_

"FREEZE!" Arcee shouted. Ratchet started and paused the image before the sleeping minds could continue.

"Wheeljack, we have the formula! Disconnect Bumblebee now!"

Wheeljack didn't hesitate for a second, and left Bumblebee only three seconds to get back to his own mind, leaving Megatron trapped in his own.

Margo laughed and patted Optimus's ear fin. "You'll be okay, Optimus."

He groaned in response.

"Hey, Margo," Miko called. "What say we leave a little gift for the 'cons?"

Ratchet smirked and activated the ground bridge.

"Adults of the hive, awaken. Ignore my marked, and go through the ground bridge."

The scraplets simultaneous whirred in response, and shot through the bridge.

She felt them all offline about a minute later, and resolved never to send them on the _Nemesis_ again.

Margo was left with only youngling scraplets, a quarter of the size of her previous Hive, and a mortally sick guardian.

She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Those things would get better. There were still a lot of scraplets at home, at school, in the base - the younglings would survive.

Wheeljack was half-carrying Bumblebee, who was rather disoriented about the sudden ejection from two minds in one day. He quickly righted himself and stood on his own two pedes, watching as Ratchet followed the rather simple formula for the cure.

Margo sighed with relief when Optimus started breathing easier.


	10. Unmineable energon vs energon harvester

Optimus was walking again three days after the Cybonic Plague incident. There was an antipsychotic in his subspace to help him sleep.

When he'd startled everyone yesterday, screaming 'no, make them stop', he hadn't been talking about Bumblebee and Wheeljack. There were voices in his head, coming from a violent reaction combining the Matrix and the plague. All the primes that ever were usually whispered in his mind, creating a white noise effect. They were all yelling when the virus reached the matrix, and his processor was still recovering from the noise no one else could hear.

In either case, they were back to a faint buzzing, but the wisdom over millions of years was still built up in his processor and pressed uncomfortably against his skull.

So, for real, Wheeljack shot Megatron dead. It was highly possible they could plug him back in, but they were already discussing euthanasia. It seemed rather pointless to speculate, seeing as Starscream was the active leader, Soundwave doubtlessly his second.

It was of course no shock that the warship disappeared off sensors when the electromagnetic shielding was repaired and vanished. No trace of them was seen. It hadn't been this way since before Megatron's reemergence through the space bridge.

Jack shrugged. "Stealth is a virtue."

So of course, when Megatron reactivated, they immediately got reports of the decepticons trying to melt a polar ice cap to get to an energon deposit.

Bulkhead whistled. "That's a D-7 class. One of the largest unmineable energon deposits there is."

"Unmineable until Megatron melts his way down to it," Ratchet said.

"Unmineable unless we have an energon harvester," Margo said halfmindedly, coloring Bumblebee in one of her sketchbooks. She snapped her fingers sarcastically. "Oh, wait! We have an energon harvester!"

Wheeljack smirked. "What other unmineable energon deposits are there, exactly?"

And the others smiled too.

"Well, we've got to stop them before that. If that ice cap melts, it'll demolish coastal cities all over the planet," Raf said.

Their good mood was immediately shattered.

Optimus, Arcee, Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and Wheeljack left.

The heat lens was shattered, and the device destroyed. The cold would return in no time, and cause permanent system damage in both the ship and the decepticons, and they would have to leave before getting to the actual mine.

Margo sighed and turned to Ratchet. "Hey, Ratch? Why're all these cybertronian relics stuck on Earth of all places?"

"Because they were transported here."

"Yeah, but there are a ton of habitable planets in the galaxy, and on this one there's already a ton of energon, an energon harvester, scraplets, and Skyquake. Is there anything else here we should know about?"

"Without the Iacon database or decepticon-sentry locations, it's impossible to know."

"Seems inconvenient. Why don't you have a copy of this 'Iacon database'? Isn't that where Optimus lived?" Margo asked.

"Not when the city fell. Only Alpha Trion and Smokescreen were present when the Iacon hall of records fell," he answered.

"Sucks," she said.

"Yes," Ratchet said.

Well... The good news was that they didn't have to go through standard defrosting procedure. Bulkhead reported that it felt like summer, and everyone more or less confirmed this.

Good news was that anything decepticon was put on halt while the ship was being repaired and displaced from the arctic.

The autobots waited another five hours to be certain before taking turns mining the unmineable, a few hours each until reading entered the blue zone. There was always at least one person on defrosting procedures, and always coming back with a mother lode of energon that filled at least a hundred cubes.

She laughed and leaned back against the chair, and started laughing. "Oh, what magnificent jackasses the decepticons are. What a lovely contribution they've made to our cause."

When the D-7 in the Arctic was empty, they chose to relax for a while. The other unmineable deposits wouldn't suddenly become less unmineable.


	11. Tee-hee, this is smart

Breakdown's armour slapped against his inner plating.

"You okay?" Knockout asked.

"Yeah, just got this weird feeling up by spinal struts."

"Someone lubricated on your grave?" Knockout turned back to his work, unconcerned.

"Yup. And my optic hurts."

"Sucks."

"Yup."

~?~

Without decepticon activity, the autobots went back to _Swan Song_, the plague ship where Optimus was infected not long ago. They first fired the energon harvester at the ship, extracting all of the infected energon, and got it back to Ratchet so he could decontaminate it. He similarly vaccinated all the bots before deciding the gathered sixty-three cubes were safe to drink.

And then they pillaged the ship for everything it was worth.

It had been a warship before being a plague ship, and it showed. Weapons, extra room, training facilities, a hyperjump drive. The only real adjustments made was that most of the quarters were reformatted into medbays, and the makeshift medbays had far more power connections than the hyperdrive or weapons.

Scrap metal, optic cable, bio-neural cable, energon lines, computers, tools (they had a fairly well-stocked sickbay), downloaded data, datapadds, weapons, anything that could be of value.

Each of the autobots were scrounging through their respective 'departments' (Ratchet and Bumblebee on medicine, Bulkhead on construction & spare parts, Arcee and Wheeljack on weapons and explosives, and Optimus in data retrieval) and making a list of things it would be nice to have. They practically tore the ship inside-out looking for files, supplies, cabling, a battery, weapons, entertainment, and especially medical tools, a working computer console, and as much data as they could get their servos on.

They only activated the computer once they were back at Omega-One. That's when Raf added it to his growing list of files and started to scrounge through it. Optimus helped, and Margo tried before the boys shooed her away, but the sheer volume of the files demanded the two recruit more people to help.

Raf couldn't just create a new subsystem for analyzing files, either, since they were often mislabelled as a way of preventing decepticons from finding important files. 'Energon nachos' could just as easily be the fuel consumption log, just as 'photos of cyber-cats' could be the Iacon database (if it existed among the autobots at all). Trying to access the files in a way that wasn't manual or 'look this up with a specific file name' tended to erase every last terabyte of data and transfer a computer virus into the computer that would in turn erase every single file - a technique designed to waste time and encourage the enemy to give up. And since there wasn't a specific file they needed to immediately locate, but they needed to know the contents, the autobots divided the work between them and Raf's translation program. Margo simply played with a scraplet while the rest ate the remains of the ship they hadn't needed.

Though, quite a few rooms upstairs where only the humans could wander around were positively packed with bio-neural and electrical cabling.

The common room was rather interestingly arranged, with most of the autobots sitting on the bio-berth with their legs propped up by nearby crates. Optimus was the only exception, unable to concentrate on anything he read without his feet above his head - a remnant from his days as Orion Pax that always seemed to relax and/or amuse his troops. It was always rather relaxing to go back to his roots of simply sifting through data and research on a quiet afternoon.

Until Bumblebee came upon the video files.

**"I didn't know Megatron was an actor!"**

Optimus replied, rather unthinkingly, chin on his knuckles and his other hand tapping against the datapadd's screen, "Uh-huh. He did porn."

He heard six distinct squawks and three yelps. Save Ratchet, whose talent for rolling with the punches was without equal. Though, the medic did look up from his datapadd.

"HE FUCKING DID PORN?" Margo squeaked.

"Yes," Optimus said faintly, still concentrating on his datapad so much the tight control on his emotions was being disrupted. "Had to get credits to start the revolution. The Arena wasn't nearly as paying as the fetish porn. I don't recommend you watch the videos." His optics refocused and his legs leaned back. "Raf, are you feeling alright? Your face looks flushed."

"I'm fine!" Raf squeaked.

Optimus shrugged and returned to his datapadd, heels rising again.

"So, how exactly do you know Megatron did porn?" Jack asked cautiously.

"Jack," Margo warned.

"No, it's quite alright, my charge," Optimus said, still expending most of his focus on his files, and slipping into his old habits of rambling and putting his pedes straight in his mouth. "Megatron and I often spoke of how to start the revolution. There had to be a method for collecting credits. Porn was one of the more paying options, and because Soundwave is functionally mute, Starscream was too busy training the fliers to work in teams, Knockout had his servos full with his apprenticeship, and I can't act to save my spark, Megatron was the most logical option. He likewise spent an exceptional amount of time with myself, Soundwave, Knockout, Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Starscream for what he dubbed 'decontamination' while we planned. The actor types were rather odd."

**"More weird than the decepticons are now?"** Bumblebee snorted as Optimus started chewing on the end of his stylus.

"No. In fact, as I recall, he did a few recordings with Knockout and Starscream's trine when they had time. Cross-caste polyamorous material was rather popular."

"Hold up, hold up!" Miko interrupted. "You were a 'con?"

"The war didn't always exist," Bulkhead said. "Interacting with people of other castes wasn't exactly frequent, but it did happen quite a bit."

"Mm," Optimus hummed, disagreeing. "I don't believe that to be true. An iaconian, two kaonians, three seekers, and a binar aren't exactly what I'd call the most likely circle, to be sure, but we got along rather well." He swiped his screen, renaming the file. "Raf, I've found a file of some interest."

"'Crash-landings'." Raf repeated, opening the file. It was immense, consisting of a file for every single ship on Earth. Severeal were decepticon ships, and others belonged to autobots. There were at least three neutral ships, too.

Ratchet whistled lowly. "Quite the file."

"You'll notice quite a few command ships. But those aren't the designations that interest me."

Arcee spotted it first. "NSYTS-EP? I-I thought the decepticons destroyed all those ships!"

"They're escape pods, all destined for here, and in rather the same place," Optimus said. "It's likely they're operating under some kind of cloak."

"Or the dark energon under the Earth is interfering with the decepticon scanners," Raf said, eyes widening at the energy profile. "I've been trying to find a match..."

"Holy fuck," Margo whispered. "That's more energon than what's on Earth. Wh- this is batshit crazy. What the fuck is dark energon doing under the Earth?"

"And why would the dark stuff be interfering now, and not then?" Bulkhead scratched his head.

"Irrelevant," Ratchet said. "We need to get to them before Megatron can."

"Who're you talking about?" Jack asked.

"The neutral sparkling-youngling transport ship escape pods," Wheeljack said. "So, after the bot/con divide. They were probably getting away from war."

"Bad luck for them, to end up right here," Miko said.

**"In either case, they need to be brought here,"** Bumblebee said.

"Agreed," Ratchet said. "If the decepticon scanners should suddenly become active again..."

There were no objections.

~?~

The neutrals were brought back to base before being sequestered into storage in the basement, safe from all forms of scanning. There were fifteen pods, all full with stasis drawers in sets of twelve, a sparkling in each drawer. Likewise, there was a guardian with each of the cases.

If they hadn't chosen a side now, it was unlikely they would. And the sparklings didn't deserve to be raised by war machines, nor were the adults deserving of being conscripted.

The second neutral ship they visited, the ship was in shambles and energon stained the deck. Either the decepticons got there before the autobots did, or they'd died in the crash. Either way, they harvested whatever they could, and had the hive eat the rest.

The third Neutral ship was a ship belonging to a team of Rescue Bots. They carried it through the bridge.

Ratchet scanned them. "They're low on energon, and their engines are somewhat injured. But the stasis fields are stable, and the hull's dented, but intact. If we transfer them downstairs, there should be no issues. Wheeljack, hook them up to the base's power system. Bulkhead, help with transportation."

The wreckers both transported the ship downstairs.

Arcee's optics danced over the updated list, divided into two files, each with a faction insignia. "Okay. That's all the neutral signals. Now, what do we do about the others? Are we going for the bots or cons first?"

"Autobots," Optimus answered. "It would save us the trouble of splitting up so thoroughly, and if we do have living allies, I'd prefer we find them first before our enemies."

"Do you need me to come, too?" Margo asked.

"No. If there are decepticons aboard the ships as prisoners, we do not need you to be meeting them in such a violent manner."

"But isn't coming to base and seeing scraplets littering the floor also a 'violent manner'?" Miko pointed out, pushing a stack of cubes with Jack to the hallway.

"Warn them about the scraplets this time," Ratchet advised. "If they know in advance, it may prepare them."

"I dunno," Wheeljack said. "I wouldn't've stayed if Margo didn't eat my ship. I still wanna squish you for that, squishy."

"Good fucking luck," Margo said, and then picked up a scraplet and a ball of jumbled melted scrap metal. Its mouth closed around the ball, but everyone could still hear the faint whirring and shrieking of the metal.

"Was that a threat, little thing?" Wheeljack asked.

"Does it need to be?" Margo asked, eyes narrowing and arms curling protectively around her scraplet.

They stared at each other a while before being broken by Wheeljack's laughter. "I like this one! She's got spunk!"

Bulkhead sighed and Arcee silently resheathed her arm blades.

"Get going," Margo smiled, and went to help with another pile of cubes. "Have fun, have good reunions, have a nice orgy, give each other lots of mind-blowing orgasms, I don't fucking care. No one fucking cares. Just don't die, ya piles of shit."

On that note, since only Bumblebee knew what that human thing meant and refused to speak, they went through the bridge.


End file.
